Intel engineer helps himself to $400 million
Intel Corporation is a world-class organization that has dominated the market for computer chips for many years. In fact, there is a high probability that the device you are using to read this post has an Intel chip inside. However, based on a recent case involving Biswamohan Pani, an Intel Senior Staff Engineer, it may need a little help protecting its intellectual property.
According to the FBI, here are the facts of the case:
From February through April, 2008, Pani was looking for a job at other computer chip manufacturers and ultimately obtained a job at Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Pani kept his job search secret from Intel. (Why wouldn’t he?)
When he announced his departure on May 29, 2008, he told the company that he might work for a hedge fund
Pani told Intel that he wanted to take the next one-and-a-half weeks as vacation until his last day at work on June 11, 2008
Unbeknownst to Intel, Pani had started downloading from Intel numerous secret documents about Intel’s manufacturing and design of computer chips. The intensive downloads began on May 28, just before he announced his departure, and continued on May 29
Pani started working at AMD on June 2, while he was still on Intel’s payroll and still had access to Intel’s computer systems
On June 8 and June 10, Pani remotely accessed Intel’s computer system numerous times and downloaded 13 of Intel’s most valuable documents
Along with other confidential and proprietary information, Pani downloaded a document explaining how encrypted documents could be reviewed when not connected to Intel’s computer system
Pani backed up the downloaded files to an external hard drive for access after he left Intel
On June 11, 2008, Pani reported to Intel for his exit interview and falsely stated that he had not retained any of Intel’s property, when, in fact, he had kept the electronic equivalent of boxes full of downloaded documents and some printed Intel documents at his apartment
Documents taken by Pani were found a month later when the FBI searched his home. Intel has valued those documents as worth $200-$400 million, at minimum
The FBI was able to recover these documents quickly, before Pani could use them to Intel’s disadvantage, largely because Intel reported the theft quickly and assisted the investigation. AMD also cooperated with the investigation, and there was no evidence that AMD or its employees had asked Pani to take these documents or even knew that he had them
Based on the fact pattern above, it appears Pani knew exactly what he was doing. He grabbed documents before, during and after Intel knew that he was leaving. He also bought time by convincing Intel that he was leaving the industry. I can’t imagine that lying about his ultimate destination stopped Intel from blocking his system access. They probably just forgot to do it. After all, Pani was still on the payroll and “burning” his vacation allotment. Why block an active employee?
Who knows what actually took place, the net result was that Pani had one-and-a-half weeks of access to Intel’s systems during which time he did the most damage. So how did Intel figure out Pani had stolen trade secrets? Clearly, after the fact, but not much else has been mentioned in the media.
This case is eerily similar to another case that the FBI investigated involving Sanofi-Aventis. Is it really that easy to steal trade secrets from Fortune 500 companies? Apparently so…
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