A Ukrainian employee from Microsoft stole more than $10 million using a vulnerability in the payment system
A Microsoft employee fraudulently earned more than $10 million from a software bug over the course of two years.
Ukrainian Vladimir Kvachuk joined the company in 2017 and participated in testing the company’s payment systems. As it turned out, there was a glitch in the program. Usually, the system sees that trial purchases are generated by the corresponding accounts, so no items are sold or shipped in such cases. However, this did not work for Xbox gift cards.
Kvachok discovered that when he applied for a gift card from his demo account, he received valid 25-digit codes by mail. Instead of reporting it to Microsoft, Kvashuk started selling tokens obtained in this way, eventually setting up an entire system for acquiring and selling tokens. He hid his manipulations with VPN, fake profiles and software he created.
As a result, over two years, Kvashuk produced 152,000 gift cards, earning $ 10.1 million on this. At the time of his arrest, he was living in a lakeside mansion, and according to his own records, he had planned to buy a more expensive yacht, seaplane and house.
Kvashuk pleaded not guilty, but was sentenced to 9 years in prison with an $8.3 million payment to Microsoft. He is also facing deportation to Ukraine.
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