Former SK Hynix employee arrested for stealing company secrets for Huawei

A former SK Hynix employee was sentenced to 18 months in prison and a fine equivalent to US$15,000 for industrial espionage. The person, whose identity was not disclosed, allegedly stole technical information from SK Hynix and then took it to Huawei.

The case was tried in South Korea, SK Hynix’s homeland, but took place in the company’s Shanghai office. In the process document, information is revealed that the accused used a total of 4,000 sheets to print the technical secrets that she was stealing.

“The defendant’s actions of printing approximately 4,000 pages of technical documents over four days at the Shanghai office of SK Hynix, which has relatively lax security measures, just before resigning, were very strange,” the indictment stated.

The suspicion that the information would be offered to Huawei comes from the fact that the suspect was hired by the company shortly after her resignation from her previous job.

It is striking that a case of industrial espionage in cutting-edge technology companies involves such an analog method. But this is probably due to the fact that SK Hynix prohibits the use of flash drives and other portable storage devices in its office, precisely as a security measure.

SK Hynix’s countryman, Samsung was also a victim

Industrial espionage is not an uncommon crime. Recently, we even had another case involving the same countries: South Korea and China.

Samsung, a fellow countryman and rival of SK Hynix, also had its secrets allegedly stolen in September this year. The case, however, was somewhat more complex and more ambitious. Instead of selling the secrets to another company like Huawei, the defendants used the information to establish a company of their own.

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We don’t have an estimate for the value of the data that the former SK Hynix employee tried to steal, but in Samsung’s case, the secrets would be worth a total of US$3.2 billion.

Fonte: WCCFTech