A man suspected of attempting to smuggle SK hynix tech secrets to China was apprehended at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport earlier this month. DigiTimes reports that the former employee subcontractor aimed to leak the firm’s proprietary high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packaging technology to entities based in China.
According to the source report, authorities had been aware of the activities of suspect ‘Mr Kim’ for several months. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Industrial Technology Security Investigation Unit made the dramatic airport arrest, moments before flight boarding, and charged Kim with violating South Korea's trade secret and unfair competition laws. Its investigators say that Kim stole critical data about HBM at around the same time he resigned as a subcontractor at SK hynix, at the beginning of the year.
