Three Individuals Face 20-Year Prison Sentence Over Google Tensor Chip IP Theft Amid Growing Iranian Involvement

Corporate espionage can be an incredibly complex issue, especially when large tech giants like Google are involved. The stakes rise significantly, as highlighted by the recent indictment of three engineers in Silicon Valley who are facing serious legal consequences for allegedly attempting to steal trade secrets linked to Google’s Tensor chip.

According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the trio—Samaneh Ghandali, Mohammadjavad Khosravi, and Soroor Ghandali—faces multiple charges. These include conspiracy to commit trade secret theft from both Google and another leading tech company, as well as theft and attempted theft of sensitive information, along with obstruction of justice.

The three suspects were arrested on Thursday and had their initial court appearance in San Jose. Notably, Samaneh and Soroor Ghandali are sisters who both have previous employment histories at Google; Samaneh served as a hardware engineer, while Soroor interned there. Following their tenure at Google, they moved to another unnamed firm—referred to as Company 3 in court documents. Mohammadjavad Khosravi, who is married to Samaneh, worked at a different firm denoted as Company 2, and had previously made multiple unsuccessful attempts to gain employment at Google.

The indictment reveals that the defendants allegedly accessed, transferred, and exfiltrated sensitive documents, including trade secrets concerning processor security, cryptography, and additional technologies. These documents were relocated to unauthorized third-party platforms and personal devices, some even ending up in Iran.

Specifically, the sisters are accused of transferring hundreds of proprietary files, which included Google’s trade secrets, to third-party communication accounts. According to the indictment, these sensitive files were subsequently copied onto various personal devices, including Khosravi’s work device at Company 2 and Soroor’s work device at Company 3.

To cover up their actions, the individuals reportedly attempted to deceive the companies affected by submitting false affidavits and making efforts to erase any digital traces of the stolen data. The indictment further notes that they even resorted to taking photographs of the on-screen documents rather than copying the complete files digitally.

The indictment states:

“On the night before Samaneh Ghandali and Khosravi traveled to Iran in December 2023, Samaneh Ghandali allegedly manually captured with her mobile phone approximately 24 photographs of Khosravi’s work computer screen containing Company 2 trade secret information. While in Iran, a personal device associated with Samaneh Ghandali accessed these photographs, and Khosravi accessed other Company 2 trade secret information.”

The connection to Google’s Tensor chip’s “processor security and cryptography”highlights a potential link to the Titan M2 security coprocessor, which safeguards user data and is featured in the recently launched Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro models alongside the Tensor G3 chip as of October 2023. This new chip comes equipped with a dedicated Tensor security core designed to run sensitive tasks in a secure environment. Anticipation is already building for the upcoming Tensor G6, which is expected to integrate the forthcoming Titan M3 security coprocessor, as noted in recent reports.

Given the defendants’ links to Iran and their alleged interest in Google’s cryptography frameworks, there is speculation regarding whether they might have acted as assets for Iranian intelligence or affiliated entities like the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).However, further developments in the case will shed more light on this matter.

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