I am sorry for your friend's loss. 450 btc is a lot of money. Why did he stored so much in a web wallet? Spend a fraction of his savings in a hardware wallet would have prevented this.
A company (merchant), not a friend, and this was Jan 2014 so pre hardware wallets. That said, the security was poor and I suspect compromised machines in any case - a browser plug in for Bitcoin trading was in use. Either way, the thief has decided to move the money about this evening...