SK Hynix's former employee has been sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison following an appeal trial.
According to reports by Yonhap News Agency, Kim-a former employee or representative of South Korean chipmaking firm was convicted of leaking classified trade secrets and advanced technology related to CMOS image sensors (CIS).
As reported, the data leaks occurred in 2022 while the employee was working at SK Hynix's local subsidiary in China and attempting to switch jobs to Chinese firms, including HiSilicon (a semiconductor subsidiary of Huawei).
The defendant illicitly printed and photographed internal documents, using the stolen information directly within resumes and job application materials to showcase proprietary processes.
The Seoul High Court upheld the prison sentence from the initial trial, emphasizing that treating industrial espionage lightly strips domestic corporations of their motivation to innovate and compromises hard-earned technological advantages.
The court found that the employee shared trade secrets downloaded from the company's internal server, a violation of its security rules.
The agency report confirmed the man admitted all of the charges for leaking classified information on so-called CMOS image sensors, a technology used fornon-memory chips in smartphone cameras and laptops.
However, most of the information he took was retrieved by the company.
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