“Miller said there was no evidence to suggest that any source
code had been modified or corrupted in the attacks. But the company
couldn’t say one way or the other whether source code had been
stolen.”
“…it could provide aid to projects that are trying to
reverse-engineer aspects of Windows. One example is a group called
Wine working on technology that lets Windows programs run on
Intel-based Linux systems. Stolen software code can also yield
clues to a product’s security flaws.”
“The worst-case scenario for a company whose source code has
been exposed is that invaders make changes to the original that
aren’t noticed until the product ships. In that case, the attackers
could add back doors or program malicious code into the
product.”