Apple Settles Lawsuit Against Ex-Employee Who Stole Trade Secrets Apple has settled a lawsuit against a former employee for allegedly stealing trade secrets and sharing those with a journalist. The tech giant had filed a lawsuit against Simon Lancaster, a… Read More

Jury Orders Ford to Pay $104.6M in Trade Secrets Case A federal jury this week ordered Ford Motor Co. to pay nearly $105 million in damages to a Texas-based software company for breaching its contract and misappropriating trade secrets. In… Read More

In Trade Secrets Case, Ex-Genentech Staffer and Husband get 6-Month Prison Sentences In the years-long case, Xanthe Lam, a former principal scientist for Genentech, and her husband Allen Lam last summer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of trade… Read More

Eli Lilly Wins SJ in Migraine Tracking Trade Secrets Case According to court filings, in 2018, both the plaintiff and defendant were in the process of developing mobile phone applications that were intended to help patients with tracking and treating… Read More

In the China Ties Case, a NASA professor and Researcher Pleads Guilty A NASA researcher and professor at Texas A&M University has pleaded guilty to concealing his ties to a Chinese government-founded university while receiving federal funding. At a hearing… Read More

Chinese Spy Convicted with Help from iCloud Backup: Report A Chinese spy carrying out industrial espionage against GE Aviation and Honeywell’s aerospace division was caught with the help of access to an iCloud backup of his iPhone, media reports say…. Read More

Taiwan Accuses Apple Supplier in China Of Stealing Trade Secrets By ‘Luring’ Competitor’s Employees Taiwanese prosecutors on Friday charged 14 people from a Chinese Apple Inc supplier for stealing commercial secrets from Catcher Technology and poaching its employees to win… Read More

Kraft Heinz Sues Golden State Foods for Trade Secrets Violations Kraft Heinz Food Company filed a complaint against Zachary Klein and Golden State Foods Corporation alleging that Golden State is actively encouraging Klein to use the confidential and proprietary trade… Read More

Block Faces Class Action Suit After 2021 Breach Payments giant Block is being taken to court by former customers who claim its negligence led to an insider stealing their personal information last year. A December 2021 breach at the firm’s… Read More

LastPass Hackers Stole Source Code Password management giant LastPass has revealed details of a security incident earlier this month in which proprietary information was stolen by threat actors. The firm, which claims to have over 33 million global users including… Read More

Tesla Wins Order to Arbitrate Trade-Secret Case Against Former Engineer A San Francisco federal judge has sent a dispute between Tesla Inc and its former engineer Alexander Yatskov to private arbitration, rejecting Yatskov’s plea to keep the case in court… Read More

Former Twitter Employee Found Guilty of Spying for Saudi Arabia According to court documents, both individuals leveraged their access to internal systems to unauthorizedly get hold of nonpublic information about users of specific accounts that were critical of the regime…. Read More

Toyota-Backed Robotaxi Unicorn Pony.ai Sues Ex-Employees Over Trade Secrets Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous vehicle company valued at $8.5 billion as of late, has sued two former employees over alleged trade secret infringement. The lawsuit is arriving months after Frank (Zhenhao)… Read More

XFL Trade Secrets Lawsuit Filed Against WWE, Vince McMahon, The Rock, and More A previous lawsuit regarding Vince McMahon and the XFL was reportedly settled, but now a new lawsuit has been filed regarding the XFL (via PWInsider), and it… Read More

Merely Receiving Confidential Information Isn’t Enough: Georgia Court Dismisses Tortious Interference with Contract Claim in Trade Secret Case In HI Technology, Georgia District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. held that a former employer’s complaint did not sufficiently allege—as a… Read More

IQE Sues Tower Semiconductor Over Trade Secret Allegations Semiconductor wafer and materials supplier IQE has filed a lawsuit against Tower Semiconductor, it announced on Monday. The AIM-traded firm claimed it had “significant evidence” that Tower misappropriated its trade secrets “to… Read More

Apple Rival Rivos Seeks Early End of Trade Secret Misappropriation Case Defendant Rivos Inc. implored the court overseeing its dispute with Apple Inc. concerning ex-employees’ alleged theft of integrated circuit technology trade secrets to toss the case. Rivos’ moving papers… Read More

Former Union Officer Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement Scheme That Generated More Than $500,000 A former union officer pleaded guilty today to conspiring to steal more than $500,000 from the labor organization, using the money for parties, trips, furniture, and other… Read More

Samsung-LG Court Battle Ends in Win for Chinese OLED Panel Makers A decadelong conflict between South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and LG Group over OLED technology has finally drawn to a close, but not before Chinese players wrested control of a… Read More

Former Spring Lake Director of Finance Arrested for Embezzling Nearly Half a Million Dollars in Taxpayer Money The former finance director of the town of Spring Lake was arrested Friday on charges of embezzlement, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft…. Read More

Lexington Man Convicted of Possessing Stolen Trade Secret From 2014 to 2017, Yu worked at ADI, where he designed microchips used by the communications, defense and aerospace industries. As a result of his work, Yu had access to ADI’s present… Read More

Sacramento-Based Propel Fuels Sues Phillips 66 over Alleged Trade-Secrets Heist According to the complaint, Phillips 66 had never sold a drop of low-carbon fuel to consumers in California at the time of the acquisition offer, meaning it was faced with… Read More

Former Coca-Cola Chemist gets 14 years for Stealing $120 Million in Trade Secrets Xiaorong Shannon Yu, 59, was sentenced by a federal judge in Greeneville, Tennessee, on charges of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, conspiracy to commit economic… Read More

Tesla Sues Former Employee for Allegedly Stealing Trade Secrets and then Attempting a Cover-up Tesla has sued a former employee who it is accusing of stealing trade secrets related to its supercomputer project, Bloomberg reported on Friday. According to a… Read More

U.S. Court Names Hytera Employees Charged in Alleged Motorola Trade-Secret Theft Several Hytera Inc. employees, including a senior vice president, plotted to steal proprietary technology from their former employer, Motorola Solutions Inc., the Federal Bureau of Investigations alleged in newly… Read More

Former CFO of Publicly Traded Brazilian Company Charged in Fraud Scheme According to court documents, Fernando Passos, 39, of Brazil, allegedly executed the fraud scheme beginning in February 2020, after an investment company published a report questioning the accuracy of… Read More

Former Bank Employee Pleads Guilty to Manipulating U.S. Treasury Securities Prices According to court documents, Tyler Forbes, 27, of Manlius, New York, was employed as a trader on the U.S. Treasuries desk of a global financial institution. From approximately January… Read More

Chinese Man Sentenced for Stealing Monsanto Trade Secret A Chinese national who pleaded guilty earlier this year to stealing a trade secret from agribusiness giant Monsanto while he worked in Missouri has been sentenced to more than two years in… Read More

NSA Employee Indicted for Allegedly Sharing Classified Information over Email The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of Mark Robert Unkenholz, an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), who held a Top Secret/SCI national security clearance. Upon his… Read More

Samsung Electronics Employee Allegedly Caught Stealing Trade Secrets A Samsung Electronics employee has been found to be illegally retaining data, some of which was deemed to be protected trade secrets, says a report from KoreaJoongAngDaily. The employee, who was scheduled… Read More

Qualcomm Files Trade Secret Lawsuits Against Two Former Employees Who Left to Work for Competitors Qualcomm took legal action this week against a former engineer for allegedly uploading confidential trade secrets from the company’s internal network to his personal email… Read More

Moog says Stolen Secrets and Poached Employees Jeopardize its Prospects in Unmanned Aviation Market Aerospace supplier Moog Inc. said stolen trade secrets and an all-out raid of its flight software employees by an aviation startup in California have jeopardized its… Read More

Walmart Defeats Contempt Bid After Losing Trade-Secrets Case An Arkansas federal court was right to reject Cuker Interactive’s contempt bid, which the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said required more than an expert’s “hunch” that Walmart was still using… Read More

Former GE Engineer Headed to Federal Trial in Trade Secret Theft Case His name was Xiaoqing Zheng, the agents learned, and in 2012 he had been chosen for the Thousand Talents Program, a Chinese government program designed to recruit talented… Read More

US Navy Officers on Trial over Accusations of Conspiring to Trade Secrets for Sex Parties Five members of the Indo-Pacific-based Seventh Fleet are accused of conspiring to trade military secrets and influence for sex parties and lavish dinners in what… Read More

Hytera Trade Secrets Theft Indictment and the Insider Threat Risk On February 7, 2022, a federal indictment was unsealed in the Northern District of Illinois charging PRC-based Hytera Communications Corporation, Ltd. (“Hytera”), and former employees of Motorola (the “Individual Defendants”)… Read More

An Amazon Warehouse Manager Faces up to 20 years in Prison after Pleading Guilty to Stealing $273,000 Worth of Computer Parts and Selling Them to a Wholesaler Douglas Wright, 27, admitted to stealing high-value components including internal hard drives, processors,… Read More

Waymo Sues State DMV to Keep Robotaxi Safety Details Secret Waymo, the driverless car company operating an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The immediate issue: whether the company, owned by Google… Read More

Former Acting DHS Inspector General Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charles Edwards, 61, of Sandy Spring, Md., who worked as acting inspector general under the Obama administration, was accused of stealing government software from his former office, so his company, Delta… Read More

FBI Arrests Social Engineer Who Allegedly Stole Unpublished Manuscripts from Authors On January 5, 2022, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the FBI’s arrest of Italian citizen Filippo Bernardini at JFK International Airport in New York for wire fraud and… Read More

Guilty Plea for Monsanto Insider to Economic Espionage Charges Cybersecurity An imaging scientist within Monsanto’s Climate Corporation subsidiary was indicted by a grand jury this week for theft of trade secrets. Haitao Xiang, a Chinese national who was a member… Read More

Former SodaStream CEO has been Charged with Insider Trading After 12 years as chief executive of the Israeli carbonated drink company, (Daniel) Birnbaum stepped down on September 1, 2019, when he was placed under investigation for insider trading violations surrounding… Read More

Feds Recover $154 Million Allegedly Stolen by Sony Insider More than $154 million in funds stolen from Sony Group Corp., the electronics giant based in Tokyo, was recovered after an insider allegedly embezzled money and converted it to bitcoin, the… Read More

Ex-McKinsey Partner Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading in Goldman Sachs Fintech Deal A former McKinsey partner has pleaded guilty to securities fraud for bets he made ahead of Goldman Sachs’ $2.2 billion acquisition of Fintech lender GreenSky. Puneet Dikshit, 40,… Read More

Ubiquiti Breach an Inside Job, says FBI and DoJ The recent unsealing of a grand jury multi-count indictment for Nikolas Sharp provides a unique and convoluted series of criminal events. It seems Sharp undertook to put approximately $2 million into… Read More

What Happens when an Insider Threat Vendor has an Insider Threat? Insider threats affect everybody. If there had ever been any doubt, look no further than Code42, a vendor specializing in insider threat protection. The company will soon release a… Read More

Pfizer Says Employee Stole Files With Covid Vaccine Secrets (3) Pfizer Inc. is alleging a “soon-to-be-former employee” misappropriated thousands of files, including documents with trade secrets related to its Covid-19 vaccine, in a California federal court lawsuit. Chun Xiao (Sherry)… Read More

A Fraudster Paid $160,000 to Recruit Moles Inside Amazon to Help Him Hijack Other Sellers’ Accounts and Products, a New Report Reveals The fraudster known as Krasr paid off moles inside of Amazon to help him hijack other sellers’ accounts… Read More

Former GE Engineer Gets Two Years in Trade Secret Theft Case; Feds Cite All Who Rely on GE as Victims A former General Electric engineer was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for conspiring to steal trade secrets… Read More

Chinese Spy Convicted in Aviation Espionage Case A federal jury in Ohio convicted Yanjun Xu, who worked for China’s Ministry of State Security, of conspiring and attempting to commit economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, according to the Justice… Read More

Prosecutors Tie Alleged Spymaster Yangun Xu to Malware Attack on French Aviation Company in 2014 Prosecutors tied accused Chinese spymaster Yanjun Xu to other espionage cases on Tuesday, trying to persuade a jury that he was part of a wide-reaching… Read More

Netflix Fires Employee for Sharing ‘Confidential’ Information Amid Chappelle Uproar Netflix fired an employee for sharing confidential and “commercially sensitive” information outside the company related to Dave Chappelle’s new stand-up special, a spokesperson for the streaming giant confirmed Friday. The… Read More

Nukegate CEO Imprisoned for Fraud Evidence presented to a South Carolina Court showed that 66-year-old Kevin B. Marsh intentionally defrauded rate-payers while overseeing and managing SCANA’s operations. Marsh made false and materially misleading statements about the progress of the company’s… Read More

Fired IT Admin Revenge-Hacks School by Wiping Data, Changing Passwords A 29-year old wiped data on systems of a secondary school in the U.K. and changed the passwords at an IT company, in retaliatory cyber attacks for being fired. As… Read More

Engineer Ends Trial by Pleading Guilty to the Federal Crime of Conspiring to Steal Trade Secrets A South Carolina man who joined in a conspiracy to steal trade secrets from aircraft companies faces sentencing in federal court after admitting guilt… Read More

Former State Department Employee Pleads Guilty To Honest Services Fraud Scheme SALEHI, 66, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.  The maximum… Read More

Man who bribed AT&T employees to install malware on the company’s network gets 12 years in prison A Pakistani man who bribed AT&T employees to install malware on the company’s internal network has been sentenced today to 12 years in… Read More

Bank Teller Charged with Federal Fraud Charges According to the Bill of Information, between November 2017 and February 2020, SILVIO held the positions of head teller, universal banker, and mortgage loan assistant at IberiaBank (“Iberia”) in New Orleans and Metairie. … Read More

Sacked Employee Deletes 21GB of Credit Union Files A former credit union employee is facing a decade behind bars after pleading guilty to destroying large amounts of corporate data in revenge for being fired. Two days after being fired on… Read More

Hospital to Pay More Than $3 Million to Settle Whistleblower Suit Tarrant County’s John Peter Smith Hospital (JPS) has agreed to pay more than $3.3 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by upcoding certain claims… Read More

T-Mobile Breach Hits 53 million Customers as Probe Finds Wider Impact T-Mobile US Inc said on Friday an ongoing investigation into a data breach revealed that hackers accessed personal information of an additional 5.3 million customers, bringing the total number… Read More

Maryland Woman Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Embezzling Money from Law Firm  WASHINGTON – Katherine Emma Ross, 30, of Millersville, Md., formerly of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for embezzling hundreds of thousands… Read More

This case highlights the need for a strong insider risk management program. While it’s not clear from publicly available information how documents were removed, there appears to have been a large scale effort to remove or copy Genentech documents and transfer them… Read More

Former Corning Employee Indicted for Stealing Trade Secrets, Economic Espionage A former lead scientist for Corning Inc. was arraigned today after a federal grand jury in Rochester returned an indictment charging him with economic espionage, theft of trade secrets and violating… Read More

Former CEO and COO of JHL Biotech Charged with Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets and Commit Wire Fraud Exceeding $101 Million  Today, the court unsealed an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in San Francisco charging Racho Jordanov, the co-founder and former Chief Executive Office of… Read More

**ITMG Insider Threat News – Archive  Former Army Green Beret Sentenced for Russian Espionage Conspiracy  WASHINGTON – A Virginia man and former Army Green Beret was sentenced today to 188 months in prison for conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to… Read More

**ITMG Insider Threat News – Archive  Office 365 Cyberattack Lands Disgruntled IT Contractor in Jail  A former IT contractor is facing jailtime after a retaliatory hack into a company’s network and wiping the majority of its employees’ Microsoft Office 365 accounts. A… Read More

  CareCentrix files corporate espionage lawsuit against Signify Health The post-acute care company claims that a former employee shared confidential information with one of its competitors.The post-acute care company CareCentrix filed a complaint in U.S. district court against Marcus Lanznar… Read More

Apple sues former MacBook product design employee for allegedly leaking to the press Apple says the employee, whose resume says he worked at Apple for more than 11 years, leaked information from internal meetings and documents. Apple says a former… Read More

China Targets General Electric Again with Intellectual Property Theft China is not taking their foot off the gas when it comes to intellectual property theft.  Chi Lung Winsman Ng, aka Winsman Ng, 64, a Chinese businessman residing in Hong Kong,… Read More

Chinese Businessman Charged With Conspiring To Steal Trade Secrets WASHINGTON – Chi Lung Winsman Ng, aka Winsman Ng, 64, a Chinese businessman residing in Hong Kong, was indicted yesterday for conspiring to steal General Electric’s (GE) trade secrets involving the… Read More

3 North Korean Military Hackers Indicted in Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes Across the Globe A federal indictment unsealed today charges three North Korean computer programmers with participating in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to conduct a series… Read More

Ticketmaster fined $10 million in corporate espionage scheme The Department of Justice announced Wednesday Ticketmaster would pay a $10 million fine as part of a differed prosecution agreement for using an employee’s login credentials to his former employer’s computer systems… Read More

Leaked Chinese Communist Party records show CCP members employed in senior, specialist and advisory positions: The Communist Party operatives were discovered at 10 consulates in Shanghai In a coordinated effort lasting more than a decade, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)… Read More

Chinese professor pleads guilty to lying to FBI in Huawei-related case A Chinese professor accused by U.S. prosecutors of helping steal American technology to benefit China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on Friday pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but… Read More

Former Raytheon Engineer Sentenced for Exporting Sensitive Military Related Technology to China Today, Wei Sun, 49, a Chinese national and naturalized citizen of the United States, was sentenced to 38 months in prison by District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez. Sun… Read More

Relative of Amazon finance employee pleads guilty to insider trading Seattle – A 36-year-old Bothell, Washington man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to securities fraud for his insider trading activity, announced U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran. … Read More

Taiwan Company Pleads Guilty To Trade Secret Theft In Criminal Case Involving PRC State-Owned Company SAN FRANCISCO – The Department of Justice today announced that United Microelectronics Corporation, Inc. (UMC), a Taiwan semiconductor foundry, pleaded guilty to criminal trade secret… Read More

IRS Agent Charged with Cocaine Distribution NEWARK, N.J. – An IRS supervisory revenue agent was arrested today on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced. Michael Shelli, 41, of Albany, New York, was arrested at his… Read More

Florida Resident Sentenced To 2 Years Probation after Previously Pleading Guilty To Accessing a Protected Computer without Authorization and Recklessly Causing Damage NEW ORLEANS –  U.S. Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced that CARLOS DAVID IRIAS, age 47, a resident of… Read More

Former Amazon employee arrested on alleged wire fraud charges for false product refunds Amazon announced Monday that one of its former employees, Vu Anh Nguyen, was reported to the FBI in July 2020 for “falsely issuing refunds for products ordered… Read More

Shopify announces data breach after two employees stole customer data Shopify said late on Tuesday that two members of its support team were engaged in a scheme to obtain customer transactional records of merchants. “We immediately terminated these individuals’ access… Read More

Former employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory sentenced to probation for making false statements about being employed by China ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. –Turab Lookman, 68, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was sentenced on Sept. 11 to five years of probation and… Read More

Former Controller for Contracting Co. Sentenced to 5+ Years in Prison for $8.7 Million Embezzlement Scheme and Filing False Tax Returns A resident of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to five years and four months (64 months)… Read More

Russian National Indicted for Conspiracy to Introduce Malware into a Computer Network A federal grand jury in the District of Nevada returned an indictment yesterday charging a Russian national for his role in a conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to… Read More

Ex-Cisco Engineer Pleads Guilty in Insider Threat Case A one-time Cisco engineer has pleaded guilty to causing $1.4 million in damages to his former employer by deleting hundreds of virtual machines, which disrupted nearly 16,000 WebEx customer accounts for weeks,… Read More

Former Army Green Beret Charged in Russian Espionage Conspiracy (DOJ Press Release) A former Army Green Beret was arrested today for allegedly conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to provide them with United States national defense information. According to court documents,… Read More

Mcdonald’s Found Nude Photos of Employees Sent by Former CEO on Company Servers: Lawsuit The Chicago-based restaurant chain claims that Easterbrook lied to preserve his severance package. McDonald’s accused ousted CEO Steve Easterbrook of sending nude photos of employees from… Read More

Former Uber Executive Sentenced to 18 Months in Jail for Trade Secret Theft From Google: Defendant Stole Google’s Confidential Information on Self-Driving Car Technology Anthony Scott Levandowski pleaded guilty and was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for trade… Read More

Three Individuals Charged for Alleged Roles in Twitter Hack Three individuals have been charged today for their alleged roles in the Twitter hack that occurred on July 15, 2020. The announcement was made by United States Attorney David L. Anderson;… Read More

China harboring military-linked biologist fugitive at San Francisco consulate, FBI says US orders China to close consulate in Houston. The Chinese consulate in San Francisco is harboring a biology researcher who falsely denied connections to the Chinese military to obtain… Read More

Hackers Convinced Twitter Employee to Help Them Hijack Accounts After a wave of account takeovers, screenshots of an internal Twitter user administration tool are being shared in the hacking underground. A Twitter insider was responsible for a wave of high… Read More

Professor Charged Over Scheme to Use $4M in US Grant Money to Conduct Research for China A criminal complaint alleges that Song Guo Zheng was a participant in a Chinese Talent Plan, a program established by China to recruit individuals… Read More

‘Theft Is Not Innovation’; Chinese Tech Executive Convicted of Silicon Valley Industrial Espionage A federal judge has convicted a Chinese national of economic espionage, stealing trade secrets and engaging in a conspiracy for the benefit of his country’s government. “The… Read More

  Ex-FBI Agent Charged with Hoarding Top-Secret Government Documents A former FBI special agent who worked for years in Chicago’s organized crime division has been charged with stealing sensitive government documents and hoarding them in his home after retirement. Yen… Read More

Former DIA Analyst Sentenced for Leaking Classified Information to Journalists A former employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for leaking classified information to two journalists in 2018 and 2019. “Frese repeatedly… Read More

Former DEA Official Pleads Guilty to Elaborate $4 Million Fraud Scheme Former Spokesman (2005-2009) Scammed Victims by Posing Falsely as Covert CIA Officer Involved in a highly-classified Intelligence Program. A former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) public affairs officer pleaded guilty… Read More

Nebraska Man Admits Stealing and Selling His Employer’s Confidential Information A Nebraska man today admitted engaging in fraudulent activity that exposed his employer’s confidential information, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced. Timothy Young, 50, of Moorefield, Nebraska, pleaded guilty by videoconference… Read More

Former IT Administrator Sentenced in Insider Threat Case A former IT administrator for an Atlanta-based building products distribution company has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after he sabotaged the firm by changing router passwords and shutting down… Read More

Prosecutors to retry ex-CIA employee on espionage charges in WikiLeaks case Federal prosecutors will retry a former CIA programmer on espionage charges after a jury couldn’t come to a decision about whether he leaked a trove of classified documents to… Read More

  Former oil services employee charged with theft of $5 million A Dunn County man appeared in court following his arrest on April 30 in connection with the theft of more than $5 million from a Killdeer oilfield cleanup company…. Read More