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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov was sentenced in Manhattan federal court on March 18, 2011, to 97 months in prison—about eight years—after a jury convicted him of stealing trade secrets and transporting stolen property across state lines. The sentence also included three years of supervised release and a $12,500 fine.
What code did Sergey Aleynikov take, and why did it matter?
Aleynikov worked at Goldman Sachs from May 2007 to June 2009, developing programs that supported the firm’s high-frequency trading in commodities and equities. The material at issue was proprietary source code for that trading system, not ordinary personal or administrative files.
The Justice Department said Goldman had acquired the underlying system in 1999 for approximately $500 million, then modified and maintained it. The system generated millions of dollars per year in profits, according to the DOJ. SecurityWeek reported that the prosecution evidence described the code as comprising about 500,000 lines; that figure is its account, rather than the DOJ’s stated acquisition value.
How did the code leave Goldman Sachs?
Aleynikov resigned in April 2009 after accepting a job at Teza Technologies, a newly formed Chicago trading firm. On June 5, 2009, his final workday at Goldman, he transferred substantial portions of the firm’s trading code to an external computer server in Germany. DOJ and FBI accounts say he encrypted the files, then deleted the encryption program and shell-command history.
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Investigators also reported that he had transferred thousands of code files to home computers. He later brought a laptop and external storage device containing Goldman code to meetings at Teza. He was arrested on July 3, 2009, after returning to Newark Airport from a visit to Teza in Chicago. These facts describe the prosecution’s account of his conduct; the jury later convicted him on the federal charges.
What were the charges and sentence?
On December 10, 2010, a Manhattan federal jury found Aleynikov guilty of theft of trade secrets and interstate transportation of stolen property. Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced him on March 18, 2011, to 97 months in prison. She also imposed three years of supervised release and a $12,500 fine.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the sentence sent a message that professionals who abuse positions of trust to steal confidential business information would be prosecuted and punished. SecurityWeek quoted Judge Cote describing the theft as audacious and disloyal, and saying it merited a significant sentence.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the case shows about protecting company source code
The case illustrates why access controls alone are not enough when employees can reach commercially sensitive code as part of their jobs. Goldman’s measures included confidentiality agreements and other protections, according to the DOJ. The reported transfers also point to the value of monitoring how code moves between corporate systems, external servers, home computers and removable storage.
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- Limit access: Grant source-code access according to job responsibilities and review it when roles change or employment ends.
- Watch transfer paths: Monitor unusually large downloads, external destinations, encryption activity and copying to removable media.
- Manage departures: Coordinate access changes with resignation and termination procedures, while preserving logs that may help establish what was accessed or copied.
- Make obligations explicit: Confidentiality agreements and clear handling rules help define how proprietary code must be protected.
The conviction and sentence establish the federal case’s outcome in 2011. They do not, by themselves, establish what happened in any later appellate or state-court proceedings.
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