A laid-off Intel engineer allegedly walked off with 18,000 “top secret” files.
Intel’s already turbulent downsizing has taken a sharp turn into espionage drama. A former Intel software engineer, Jinfeng Luo, is accused of allegedly stealing around 18,000 confidential files, some of which were marked as "top secret” before vanishing entirely.
According to The Mercury News, Luo, who had worked at Intel since 2014, received a termination notice on July 7th, 2024, as part of the chipmaker’s ongoing wave of layoffs.
But in the days leading up to his departure, the employee allegedly began copying massive amounts of data from his company-issued laptop to an external drive. The move triggered alarms within Intel’s cybersecurity division.
After the failed attempt, he tried again three days before leaving. This time, investigators say, he succeeded, transferring the trove of files to a personal network-attached storage (NAS) device.
Intel says it has spent more than three months trying to reach Luo, calling, emailing, and even sending physical letters to his last known address. Every attempt has been met with silence. The company has since turned to the courts, seeking $250,000 in damages and the return of all stolen data.
Security loopholes
This isn’t Intel’s first brush with insider data theft. In a similar case last year, another former engineer was caught taking confidential files to help secure a new position at Microsoft.
That ex-employee received two years of probation and a $34,000 fine, after court documents revealed that the stolen data may have been leveraged during negotiations with Intel’s rival.And in August this year, a whitehat hacker broke into four of Intel’s internal systems and discovered that the sensitive data of 270,000 Intel employees was exposed.
Security researcher Eaton Zveare found that it was possible to bypass authentication on Intel’s corporate business card ordering website in India.
Political and financial turmoil
Intel has been losing talent as part of a massive restructuring effort, which has already resulted in the elimination of 35,000 jobs over the past two years.
The layoffs follow a deep financial downturn that was revealed in mid-2024. Intel has struggled in recent years after missing the AI boom, while its rival AMD has gained ground in the personal computer and server markets.
The company has also had a turbulent relationship with Trump’s administration. In August, US President Donald Trump demanded the immediate resignation of new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, calling him "highly conflicted" due to his ties to Chinese firms and questionable plans to turn around the struggling American chip icon.
A meeting between Tan and Trump, which was prompted by Trump's demands, resulted in a deal that the US would take a 10% stake in Intel.
"He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. So we picked up $10 billion," Trump said at the time.
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In September, Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion in Intel, lending its weight to the struggling US chip foundry.
Under the announced deal, Intel plans to design custom data center central processors that Nvidia will package with its AI chips, known as GPUs. A proprietary Nvidia technology will enable Intel and Nvidia chips to communicate at higher speeds than before.
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