Former IBM VP Alleges Concealment of China-Linked Breaches (NYSE: IBM)

A former IBM cybersecurity vice president has accused the company of concealing multiple data breaches by Chinese state-linked hackers between 2013 and 2016, according to a lawsuit filed in 2020 and unsealed the week of June 1, 2026. Whistleblower William Barlow, who led threat intelligence until 2019, alleged IBM’s core network was “routinely hacked,” and that neither customers nor U.S. authorities were notified—despite IBM’s role as a cybersecurity vendor to the federal government. The complaint claims hackers tied to the Chinese group APT 10 potentially breached IBM’s network more than 56,000 times. An internal investigation launched after a 2017 warning from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance found four servers compromised and nearly 400 accounts accessed across 18 countries, the lawsuit says. IBM could not fully investigate because it had failed to retain basic access logs, the complaint states. IBM spokesperson Miki Carver said the U.S. Department of Justice declined to intervene in the six-year-old case and that IBM is “confident” its actions followed the law. Barlow’s lawyer argued, “You can’t sell cybersecurity to the federal government while allegedly having these security problems.” The allegations could intensify scrutiny of IBM’s government contracts.