A former employee of Russia’s top internet search engine Yandex received two years’ probation from a Moscow court for stealing source code and trying to sell it, according to reports.
Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that the ex-employee took source code and algorithms contained in a piece of internal software called Arcadia.
It said the code was stored “on a removable storage medium for subsequent transfer to third parties”.
The asking price was reportedly a shade under $40,000, consisting of payments in US dollars and Russian roubles, though the Russian news report said its true value ran into the millions of dollars.
Ars Technica reported that the man tried selling the code to a place his friend worked, and also sought out potential buyers on the darknet.
TheNextWeb also reported that the proceeds were to be used to fund the man’s own start-up.
Yandex is Russia’s largest search engine with around 60 percent market share, according to Wikipedia.
