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Secret Google TPU Chip Technology Compromised by Chinese National

A former Google Software Engineer allegedly uploaded over 500 confidential files to his personal account.

Piotr Thumbnail Breach 09 10 1x1

What is the attack?

  • A former Google software engineer, Linwei "Leon" Ding, allegedly stole trade secrets related to Googleā€™s TPU chip technology.

  • Over the course of a year, he uploaded more than 500 confidential files to his personal Google Cloud account.

  • Ding also engaged with two China-based tech companies, using the stolen information to further his work while secretly founding his own AI company.

Why did it get through?

  • Insider Threats: Ding had authorized access to the data as part of his role, making it difficult for traditional access control mechanisms to differentiate between legitimate and malicious activity.

  • Lack of Behavioral Monitoring: There was no effective monitoring of anomalous user behavior, such as uploading sensitive files to personal cloud storage accounts.

What is required to solve for this attack?

  • Behavioral Analytics and Monitoring: Deploy systems that can detect unusual patterns, such as repeated large file uploads or access to files outside the userā€™s normal scope of work.

  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Implement DLP tools to prevent unauthorized file transfers to external accounts and trigger alerts for sensitive data movement.

Press Links

  • Reuters
  • NYTimes
  • Financial Times