Friday, February 17th 2023
ASML's Ex-Employee in China Allegedly Stole Confidential Information
The Netherlands-based ASML has reportedly launched a comprehensive investigation into the company's branch in China following reports that one of its former employees allegedly stole confidential information. According to Bloomberg, the employee in question was part of a product life cycle management (PLM) program for ASML's advanced lithography solutions. Specifically, the employee worked for the Teamcenter software division responsible for lithography tool management. This software was used to create digital twins of scanners and other tools and allowed information to be shared among the company's employees. In ASML's case, the software contained all the confidential information about the scanners and how they work, which makes it a target for IP theft. We do not know if this is a China-sponsored action to boost its domestic lithography tool development; however, ASML has issued a statement below.
Sources:
Bloomberg, via Tom's Hardware
ASMLWe have experienced unauthorized misappropriation of data relating to proprietary technology by a (now) former employee in China. We promptly initiated a comprehensive internal review. Based upon our initial findings we do not believe that the misappropriation is material to our business. However, as a result of the security incident, certain export control regulations may have been violated. ASML has therefore reported the incident to relevant authorities. We are implementing additional remedial measures in light of this incident.
33 Comments on ASML's Ex-Employee in China Allegedly Stole Confidential Information
In Britain, the centre of this 18th-century Industrial Revolution, the strategic value of the new science was very clear. The British treated industrial knowledge as a state secret, even going so far as to ban mechanics from emigrating in case they took their techniques to rival nations.
For Britain's former colonial subjects in the new US, this was a problem. Without the latest science, how could they hope to compete?
Enter Alexander Hamilton, America's first ever treasury secretary, who proposed a simple solution: break the law and steal the technology.
Putting the full weight of the treasury behind the effort, Hamilton sent spies to observe British industry. He granted passage and patents to immigrating British mechanics. As his biographer Ron Chernow writes, during Hamilton's tenure as treasury secretary "the US government condoned something that, in modern phraseology, could be termed industrial espionage".
What has been will be again,
and what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a case where one can say,
“Look, this is new”?
It has already existed
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance
of those who came before,
and those yet to come will not be remembered
by those who follow after.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11
If you scroll through the posts now, it is mostly echo-chamber, but still... That is also not the point of tech forum...