Apple's insider leaks reveal the potential for a new AI fix

Data leaks happen all the time − literally. There’s an average of one every 39 seconds. 

You hear about the big ones: a breach at a background check company leaked some 2.9 billion records recently, including Social Security numbers and other personal data of millions of Americans; a Supreme Court’s leak revealing its intention to overturn its landmark decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion; all the significant details of Apple’s latest iPhone. 

That last one just happened. By the time Apple introduced the latest iPhone 16 lineup in California, we already knew every significant announcement ahead of time. 

That’s a big deal because Apple is notoriously secretive. The company has gone to great lengths in the past to track down and punish people who leak everything from internal memos to hardware updates.  

Still, like clockwork, a prolific bevy of insider leaks gave us a few weeks' advance on all the big news, including photos of the new iPhone 16, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. We also knew about all of the most significant updates to AirPods and Apple Watches. 

Of course, they were all just rumors until Tim Cook actually took the stage at Apple’s headquarters and made them all official-like, but were they? Really? Or was this just the latest case of corporate insider leaks gone wild? 

“With a company as gifted as Apple, who are masters of the message, having uncontrolled leaks where they no longer have control of their own [event], it’s not ideal,” EchoMark CEO Troy Batterberry said over the phone. “It's damaging, and it's frustrating for all the people on the teams trying to have that great moment in time where you take the world by storm…it takes the wind out of your sails.” 

Here’s what’s crazy, though: Batterberry says these leaks are now more preventable than ever before and adds that he has the new tech to prove it. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first, why should we care about insider leaks? 

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Here’s why insider leaks like Apple’s are such a threat

Sometimes, people leak insider info to “be cool.” They want to show the world they know something no one else does. It racks up views on social media. It ‘wins friends and influences people.’ It makes them feel important. Sometimes, leakers think it’s in the public’s best interest to spill company secrets.

Others do it for even more nefarious reasons. Maybe they have an axe to grind with their boss. Or they’re trying to get a job at the competition. Sometimes, people do it for the money − if they find someone willing to pay for information.

“You have these people who want to feel important, exert power and control or try to damage the organization so they can move up,” explains Dr. Deanna D. Caputo over a video call. 

Dr. Caputo is a chief scientist at MITRE, a non-profit IT and engineering firm investigating insider leaks from all angles. “The problem is vast, and the cost is millions and millions each year trying to protect our economy, our homeland, and our personal data.” 

How does this tie back to Apple… and us?

Apple’s the largest company in the world, with a market cap of $3.48 trillion. If they can’t keep a lid on some of their most important information, what does that mean for the rest of us, with our entire private lives stored on company servers? You know, things like our social security numbers, healthcare records and financial data − pretty much all that seems to get leaked these days?

“​​Having a leak like this anywhere, but especially at a company like Apple, is a huge, huge issue,” agrees Kyle Schlosser, cyber-security insider threat management specialist. “If somebody was able to remove that data from their environment without a legitimate business purpose, they have an insider problem.”  

According to a recent report by software security company Code42, insider information theft is one of the biggest problems facing modern businesses. 

In one misguided moment, an employee can erase entire lifetimes of hard work and jeopardize intellectual property, customers’ personal data, money and the company's good name.

“When we think that well, maybe someone doesn’t seem physically harmed (by insider leaks) − it’s not like when there’s an active shooter where the average American can instantly see and understand the threat and terror − but this is just as bad in many ways,” Dr. Caputo posits. “It’s harder to see the impact, maybe, but everyone deals with the consequences of corporate espionage, whether you realize you are or not. It costs money, jobs and even lives.” 

Let’s be real here, though. No one died or lost billions of dollars because someone stole Tim Cook’s big reveal thunder ahead of Apple’s latest press conference. But that’s not often the case with corporate insider leaks, say several experts working to staunch the rising tide of information theft. 

More:Recent Apple updates focus on health tech. Experts think that's a big deal.

Can new technology shore up insider leaks for good? 

I went down the rabbit hole of this issue after meeting with EchoMark’s Troy Batterberry about the launch of a new service they call SecureView. Rather than a typical product unveiling, though, our nearly two-hour conversation kept reminding me of the TV show 'The Americans'. (That’s the Cold War period spy drama in which two Soviet KGB intelligence officers posing as an American married couple living in Virginia.)

The reality of this whole insider leak business is very “cloak and dagger,” and Batterberry’s fix is, well, mind-boggling. 

In a nutshell, the new software uses a novel new mix of AI and machine vision with forensic watermarking and steganography (hiding messages within messages) that makes all written material − emails, PDFs, downloads and more − as unique and individualized as a fingerprint. 

That means if any classified or private information gets out, the company can track it back quickly and easily to the source of the leak. 

Batterberry showed me how it all works using one of Tim Cook’s leaked emails to staff from 2021. Without changing the overall meaning of the original message, EchoMark’s AI suggests minor changes that result in near-infinite combinations − some 15 simple phrase edits allow for 435 octillion message variations. 

That’s a number with 27 zeroes. 

“No one on the planet has done what we’ve done,” Batterberry says. “If everyone knows they're getting a unique copy, then they're less likely to leak because they know there's a good chance they’ll get caught. We tell everyone, ‘Hey, your copy of the information is now unique. You don't know how it's unique. It's hidden all over it. It's like your digital fingerprint scattered across the content. If you choose to leak this thing, you're going to get caught.’” 

When I asked if they could have prevented Apple’s latest news from leaking, he answered, “I believe we could − or at least dramatically reduce the propensity of them happening.”

While the current focus is insider leaks, Batterberry says they’re already testing to see if this next-gen steganography can solve many other growing societal issues spurred by AI, such as deep fake videos, misinformation and other painful hacks. 

“What we’re doing is teaching people that there's this new way to secure your private information. People don't even know this stuff is possible. That's what we're really pioneering.”

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air contributor for The Today Show. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her atJJ@Techish.com.