A former OpenAI engineer with reported Saudi ties was detained after allegedly planting a secret recording device in a conference room at OpenAI's headquarters. Dark Reading presents the case as an example of a preventable insider threat vector. The available text is only a short teaser, so it gives no detail on the device, how long it wa…
Edward Dubrovsky, a longtime cybersecurity executive described by Dark Reading as a prominent ransomware negotiator, was arrested and charged in Pennsylvania last week with conspiracy to extort money. The available article text is a brief summary and does not describe the alleged scheme, the victims, the amounts involved or any link to sp…
Federal prosecutors charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and US permanent resident who joined OpenAI in July 2025, with using a device to intercept oral communications. He allegedly planted a covert audio recorder in an executive-only conference room no later than 28 September 2026. OpenAI's countersurveillance sweep …
A US federal magistrate judge in San Francisco ordered former OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan to remain in custody, citing flight risk. Prosecutors allege he planted a covert audio recording device, hidden in toilet paper behind a TV, in an executive conference room used for confidential meetings. OpenAI found the device in late Septe…
Flashpoint's first monthly insider threat report, drawn from its Primary Source Collection (PSC), identified 9,787 insider-related posts across 1,216 channels and 1,778 authors in September 2026. Overall volume fell, but threat actors kept recruiting insiders and advertising insider access, mostly to enable fraud. Flashpoint counted 857 u…
Federal prosecutors say former OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, was "mere days" from fleeing to Saudi Arabia before his arrest. A San Francisco federal judge (Alex Tse) denied his request for home confinement. Prosecutors allege he secretly installed an audio recording device in an executive conference ro…
Kenneth Carter, 44, of Portland, Oregon, a former AT&T retail store employee, was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for acting as the inside man for a SIM-swap gang. According to his plea agreement, the scheme ran from May 2018 to November 2019 and involved at least three co-conspirators. Carter used privileged store access to move…
A reader comment on Schneier on Security discusses the arrest of a suspect in a case involving the hacking of FBI systems. The comment cites Reuters reporting that the person involved was a contractor working for Accenture, and that the bureau says it has "removed the contractor" and taken steps to protect its workforce. The commenter, Cl…
U.S. Army soldier Cameron John Wagenius (alias Kiberphant0m), 22, was sentenced in Seattle to 70 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution. He had pleaded guilty to hacking multiple telecommunications companies and stealing call and text metadata for more than 100 million AT&T customers in 2024. Working with co-c…
The US Department of Justice has charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and OpenAI engineer, with attempting to intercept oral communications. He allegedly installed a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense recorder in a USB port on a TV in OpenAI's executive conference room around September 28, 2026. Staff found the device conceale…