Three engineers have been accused of stealing chip security trade secrets from companies such as Google.

Federal prosecutors have reportedly arrested three Silicon Valley engineers accused of stealing sensitive chip security trade secrets from companies like Google and transferring them to unauthorized locations, including Iran. A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has indicted Samaneh Ghandali, Soroor Ghandali, and Mohammadjavad Khosravi. According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), while working at Google, Samaneh Ghandali allegedly transferred hundreds of documents, including Google's trade secrets, to a third-party communications platform. The stolen material involved trade secrets related to processor security and cryptography. The defendants are accused of attempting to cover up their actions by deleting files, destroying electronic records, and submitting false affidavits to the victim companies. The indictment describes how, in December 2023, the night before traveling to Iran, Samaneh Ghandali photographed about twenty images of trade secret information displayed on a work computer screen at another company. While in Iran, a device associated with her accessed these photos, and Khosravi accessed other trade secret materials. Google's internal security system detected suspicious activity in August 2023 and revoked Samaneh Ghandali's access. All three defendants were charged with conspiracy and theft of trade secrets, as well as obstruction of justice. The statutory maximum penalty for obstruction of justice is 20 years imprisonment. Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Kronos Research, stated that employees with legitimate access, even under existing controls, can quietly extract highly sensitive intellectual property over time. The risks faced by semiconductor and cryptography companies often come from "trusted insiders, not hackers." Dan Dadybayo, head of strategy at Horizontal Systems, stated that the "boundary" breaks down when engineers are able to move architecture, key management logic, or hardware security designs out of a controlled environment. Dyma Budorin, executive chairman of Hacken, stated that certification frameworks such as SOC 2 and ISO typically measure compliance maturity, not actual resilience against specific attackers, especially insiders. These certifications demonstrate the existence of controls at the time of auditing, but do not prove that sensitive data cannot be stolen.