Apple company filed a lawsuit against OpenAI

Two major players in the tech world — Apple and OpenAI — have found themselves in a serious legal dispute, reported by Zamin.uz.

Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the leading artificial intelligence company of stealing trade secrets and unlawfully accessing confidential information. According to the complaint, OpenAI allegedly lured former Apple employees to gain access to important technical documents related to products that had not yet been publicly announced.

This information is currently being widely discussed in international tech publications. As stated in Apple’s official documents, former systems engineer Chang Liu, after leaving the company, exploited at least three undisclosed and previously unknown software vulnerabilities within Apple’s network to download confidential files.

This vulnerability falls into the zero-day category, meaning Apple’s specialists had not yet identified or patched it, allowing the former employee to exploit it for malicious purposes. This dealt an unexpected blow to the company’s security system.

Even after joining OpenAI, Chang Liu maintained access to Apple’s network for several weeks. During this time, he downloaded numerous technical documents, including engineering specifications, technical descriptions, and project data for products that had not yet reached the market.

An audit of Apple server logs revealed that only Liu had exploited this system error, indicating that the breach was intentional.

Furthermore, according to the lawsuit, Liu not only exploited the system vulnerability but also used the work computer of his acquaintance and then-current Apple employee Yu-Ting Peng without authorization. Later, Peng also left Apple and joined the OpenAI team.

This situation is being regarded as a systematic effort by OpenAI to gather Apple’s internal information. Apple representatives stated that the former employee failed to return his company-issued laptop in accordance with procedure and attempted to use it to gain access to the company’s cloud storage repositories.

This incident once again highlights how critical it is for major tech corporations to ensure data security during employee offboarding. Typically, when an employee leaves, all of their access permissions should be revoked.

However, the risk of confidential information falling into unauthorized hands due to software vulnerabilities or human error always remains. Apple has now confirmed that it has fully resolved this vulnerability and closed all points of unauthorized access.

OpenAI has not yet issued an official statement regarding these allegations. The ongoing legal proceedings are expected to have serious implications not only for the relationship between the two companies but also for talent mobility and intellectual property protection standards across Silicon Valley.