> Hidden Audio Recorder Found at OpenAI as Employee Faces Federal Charges

OpenAI employee charged with planting hidden audio recorders to capture sensitive discussions about AI research and company strategy. On September 30, OpenAI staff found a small audio recording device jammed into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room in their San Francisco office. The device had been there since September 28, its contents were encrypted, and whoever put it there had wrapped it in toilet paper to hide it. Federal prosecutors named the man as Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national who’d been working on OpenAI’s product team since July 2025. Alfozan was fired and arrested on October 9. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. “An employee of OpenAI has been arrested for and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications.” states DoJ. “Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was arrested on Oct. 9, and made his initial appearance in federal court today.” The executive conference room hosted meetings about confidential research, product plans, business deals, government relations, and OpenAI’s technical progress. These were clearly sensitive discussions. FBI Director Kash Patel said the alleged goal was to spy on conversations about the company’s intellectual property. “According to the complaint unsealed today, Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Protecting American SI innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security, and the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities. Thank you to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and our law enforcement partners for their support — and we will continue working closely with our partners across the U.S. government and private sector to keep American businesses and citizens safe and to ensure our country maintains its competitive edge.” Alfozan had no permission to enter the room or attend meetings there. CCTV footage showed him near the conference room several times before the recording device was discovered. On October 5, five days after OpenAI found it, cameras captured him looking behind the same television where the device had been hidden. He appeared to be checking on it or preparing to retrieve it. Before the device was installed on September 28, Alfozan used an internal OpenAI tool to search for office addresses, meeting rooms and their capacity, room calendars, the locations of executives and senior leaders, and schedules for meetings with external partners. These searches suggest he was gathering information about the company’s facilities and activities. Investigators also found a series of chatbot prompts submitted between September 24 and 30 through an account linked to Alfozan’s spouse. The account shared several identifiers with his own. The prompts covered how to build a continuous audio recorder, configure Wi-Fi, improve recording and live listening quality, encrypt an SD card, and enable remote access. Prosecutors also noted that on September 27 and 28, the account submitted prompts referring specifically to the custom header and unique MAC address of Recording Device 1. This happened just one day before the device was installed. On October 5, the same day Alfozan was caught on camera looking behind the television, he also left a bag unattended in a different room in an OpenAI building. Security staff opened it and found another recording device similar to the first one, along with his wallet and ID. So either he was planning to plant a second device, or he was already carrying a spare. “If convicted, Alfozan faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by 3 years of supervised release.” concludes DoJ. OpenAI said it used its own internal AI models to help analyze the device, which TechCrunch reported “contained advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring.” OpenAI also confirmed there’s no indication that Alfozan accessed or exfiltrated model weights, source code, or customer data through any other channel. This case is being prosecuted under National Security Presidential Memorandum 11, specifically tied to protecting American superiority in what the government is now formally calling “super intelligence” technology. The Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, weighed in personally, calling AI development a national security prerogative. That framing, a straightforward wire tap case dressed in super intelligence language, tells you something about where this administration sees AI in the broader geopolitical picture. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, OpenAI)