In this weekly digest, we look into the alleged theft of cutting-edge technology. TSMC accused a former top executive of leaking chip technology information. The case quickly escalated to potential violations of Taiwan’s National Security Act.

Recently, another major insider incident became public. This time TSMC, the world-leading chipmaker, filed a lawsuit against a former employee. The company sent legal papers to the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court in Taiwan, accusing Lo Wei-Jen, a former senior vice president, of leaking trade secrets and confidential information. TSMC seeks to protect its leading market position in the semiconductor industry. A court spokesperson made an official statement that Mr.

Lo Wei-Jen held major responsibilities at TSMC, overseeing mass production of the company’s 5-nm, 3-nm, and 2-nm chips.

Before his departure, Mr. Lo informed TSMC that he planned to retire and join an academic institution. However, shortly after leaving, he accepted a position at Intel as Vice President of Research & Development. Interestingly, he had previously spent 18 years at Intel prior to his long tenure at TSMC.

TSMC now alleges that Mr. Lo violated his employment contract, breached his non-compete agreement, and disregarded national security regulations. It is rumored that he removed more than 80 boxes of documents and held private meetings with subordinates to discuss advanced manufacturing processes before his exit.

Taiwanese prosecutors confirmed that they raided Mr. Lo’s properties on November 27. Acting on a search warrant, investigators seized computers, USB drives, and other potential evidence related to the case.

Intel has officially denied any wrongdoing, stating that it fully supports Mr. Lo. “Talent movement across companies is a common and healthy part of our industry, and this situation is no different,” an Intel spokesperson commented.

The investigation will determine whether Mr. Lo violated his contracts or removed proprietary chip technology. Regardless of the outcome, the legal process is expected to be lengthy and expensive, as any leak of highly sensitive data could significantly damage TSMC’s competitive position.

Incidents like this highlight the importance of addressing security issues preemptively. To help organizations prevent the threat of data leaks, the SearchInform team has developed FileAuditor, a DCAP-class solution designed for proactive protection of confidential data.

The system scans all corporate file storage locations, analyzes the files it finds, and marks them with special labels. After that, FileAuditor distributes user access rights, prohibiting or allowing specific operations, such as copying to external storage or processing in specific applications. The solution supports flexible customization of security policies: rules can be applied to user groups, specific users, or workstations. This gives the security team the efficient solution that is easy to manage and operate.

To further facilitate usability of confidentiality labels, we developed Risk Monitor, our Next-Gen data loss prevention (DLP) system. The solution reads the labels applied by FileAuditor and quickly enforces the appropriate security rules based on each file’s confidentiality level. Risk monitor combines DLP functionality with advanced e-forensics and corporate fraud prevention. It can be seamlessly integrated with FileAuditor, ensuring complete protection against internal threats.