Samsung Electronics Employee Leaks Technology Again... Referred for Investigation After Dismissal "Strict Accountability Enforced"

Consecutive Data Leaks... 'Lockdown' Measures Including Ban on ChatGPT Use Within the Company

It has been reported that another technology leak incident has occurred at Samsung Electronics.

According to industry sources on the 17th, Samsung Electronics' DS (semiconductor) division dismissed engineer A on charges of leaking materials including core technologies and requested an investigation by national authorities.

Engineer A sent dozens of important documents containing core technologies to an external personal email. It is known that after forwarding some of the materials to another external email account of his own and storing them, he was caught.

Samsung Electronics plans to respond strongly through personnel disciplinary actions and civil and criminal legal measures. A Samsung Electronics official stated, "We will strictly enforce rewards and punishments based on individual responsibility."

Inside view of the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus line. [Photo by Samsung Electronics]

As the semiconductor hegemony competition among major countries intensifies, technology leak incidents at Samsung Electronics have been occurring continuously since last year.

Engineer B, who was preparing to move to an overseas company, was caught photographing and storing confidential documents containing national core technologies during remote work. Samsung Electronics requested an investigation into B in April last year. After confirming criminal charges, B was detained and brought to trial. In the first trial, B was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison with 2 years probation and fined 10 million won, but the prosecution appealed, and the second trial is underway.

Another engineer, C, was caught taking thousands of photos of important technical documents while preparing to move to a domestic partner company. Samsung Electronics dismissed C and requested an investigation by national authorities. C was sentenced to imprisonment by a court last month, and the prosecution appealed.

Earlier this year, seven former researchers including one from Samsung Electronics' subsidiary Semes were sentenced to imprisonment for violating the Act on the Prevention and Protection of Industrial Technology Leakage. They were charged with illegally using trade secrets such as semiconductor wet cleaning equipment manufacturing technology to produce 14 pieces of equipment worth approximately 71 billion won and smuggling them to Chinese companies or semiconductor research institutes. This involved stealing national core technologies supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

As concerns over technology leaks grew, Samsung Electronics recently banned the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT within the company and by employees. This was to prevent misuse cases such as uploading internal email contents and inputting entire internal source codes.

Under the Act on the Prevention and Protection of Industrial Technology Leakage (Industrial Technology Protection Act), if caught smuggling national core technologies for use by foreign countries, one faces imprisonment of three years or more and a fine of up to 1.5 billion won. For industrial technologies, imprisonment of up to 15 years or a fine of up to 1.5 billion won may be imposed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.