Apple has launched a legal battle against OpenAI, alleging that an ex-engineer used a rare bug to access confidential information for weeks after leaving the company. The lawsuit seeks injunctions and steep penalties.

According to Apple’s complaint, former employee Chang Liu, who had worked on sensitive product development programs, discovered an ‘authentication bug’ in February 2026. Despite knowing it should return his work laptop, he allegedly downloaded over 30 confidential hardware-related files detailing unreleased products and proprietary project data.

While investigating internal messages between Liu and another employee, Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, Apple stumbled upon the bug. In a message to Peng, Liu quipped: ‘LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.’

Apple claims that these files were ‘expressly labeled as confidential,’ and that Liu’s actions endangered unreleased products’ circuit board presentations, which would be invaluable for competitors. The bug was quickly fixed after Apple discovered it but did not appear to impact other users.