IBM Lawsuit: Former Executive Claims Company Concealed Chinese Hacks Over a Decade - News and Statistics

A former cybersecurity executive at IBM has accused the company of experiencing three cyberattacks by foreign governments over the past decade and subsequently concealing those incidents, according to a lawsuit unsealed this week .

The legal action, filed in 2020 by William Barlow, who served as IBM 's vice president of threat intelligence until August 2019, alleges that the company determined Chinese hackers had infiltrated its core network between 2013 and 2016. Barlow claims IBM then covered up those breaches and never disclosed them. The complaint further states that at least two IBM subsidiaries were also breached and that the company concealed those incidents as well.

Barlow's complaint asserts that IBM's core network was routinely hacked by foreign state actors and others, with data frequently stolen and government agencies never notified. While the alleged breaches date back more than a decade, the case highlights that cyberattacks, even those affecting large public technology firms like IBM, sometimes remain undisclosed to the public or relevant authorities. IBM is a major cybersecurity vendor to the U.S. federal government, making the alleged concealment particularly notable. In recent years, several data breach notification laws have been enacted to address this issue.

Bloomberg first reported on the lawsuit. IBM spokesperson Miki Carver declined to answer specific questions the case and the underlying accusations. Instead, Carver stated that the complaint was filed six years ago and that the U.S. Department of Justice declined to intervene, adding that IBM is confident its actions followed the law.

In particular, Barlow said IBM was among several victims of a hacking campaign by APT 10, a group linked to the Chinese government. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2018 that this group had targeted a Who's Who of the global economy when its members were indicted. The hackers broke into both IBM's network and data it maintained in partnership with AT&T .

Barlow alleged that in March 2017, intelligence officials from the Five Eyes alliance, comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, warned IBM of the breach, prompting an internal investigation. According to the complaint, that investigation concluded that APT 10 potentially breached IBM's network more than 56,000 times between 2013 and 2016. Crucially, the company said it could not investigate further because it had not kept logs of who accessed its network and when, a basic security practice.

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