South Korea’s expanded espionage law takes effect to protect chip technology

South Korea just made stealing chip secrets a lot more expensive. The country’s revised Criminal Act took effect on September 13, expanding the definition of espionage beyond “enemy states” to cover any foreign country or organized entity, with prison sentences ranging from three to 30 years. The old law, untouched for over seven decades, essentially treated espionage as a North Korea problem. The new version acknowledges a reality that South Korean chipmakers have been living with for years: the threat to their semiconductor crown jewels comes from multiple directions. A record wave of leaks forced the issue The timing isn’t coincidental. In 2025, South Korean police reported a record 33 technology leak cases, with more than half linked to China. The semiconductor sector was the primary target. One case stood out above the rest. Five former Samsung Electronics employees were indicted for allegedly transferring critical DRAM manufacturing technology to ChangXin Memory Technologies, a Chinese memory chip firm known as CXMT. Samsung and SK Hynix together dominate the global memory chip market, controlling vast shares of both DRAM and NAND flash production. The revised law was passed ...