Apple accuses an ex-employee of stealing data for OpenAI: the insider remains the top threat to corporate secrets

Apple handed the court what it calls "shocking evidence" against a former employee: by the company's account, he copied a trove of internal data before leaving for OpenAI. The clash of two giants is interesting not for its details but for the pattern: in the AI race, data and know-how have become so valuable that the hunters are not hackers but a company's own people with legitimate access.

Security research has repeated the same point for years: a large share of leaks happens through insiders, peaking in the final weeks before departure. Yet in most companies a leaver's access is cut on the last day, and nobody reviews what was copied a month earlier.

For a business in Kazakhstan the conclusion is intensely practical. First: access rights should match the current role, not accumulate over years. Second: bulk data exports should trigger an automatic alert, not a post-mortem. Third: employment contracts and NDAs should spell out what counts as a trade secret. Setting this up now is cheaper than proving it in court later.