Before he was outed as the 12th member of a Russian spy ring uncovered by American officials last month, Alexey Karetnikov tested codes for Microsoft, the Redmond, Washington software giant. The 23-year-old had been on the junior-level job for less than a year, and the Justice Department says he didn't have access to any sensitive information. A private researcher told the Financial Times that Karetnikov could have been looking for vulnerabilities in Microsoft programs to aid his comrades in their espionage endeavors.
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