Similar parallels exist in many walks of life. Those guarding assets need incentives to be loyal
In a case of a potentially bad actor/blackest hat, you make them an offer they can’t refuse. Take lots of money and stay quiet, or we will unleash our government pit bulls.
Let me guess what happened to Solnik. He got to work one day to find out his meetings for that day was cancelled. Then got an iMessage asking him to come to a different building instead to meet with Global Security Operations. :)
This is never about Apple finding something against you. It is about Apple now deciding you are too risky to employ as you constitute an internal threat because you read too much or you put one and one together and told someone something you're not supposed know because you're not disclosed on it.
Apple probably let him keep his bonus and all the RSUs he was promised, as a demonstration of "good faith".
>The full story of Solnik’s short stint at Apple is a closely-guarded secret. Motherboard spoke to dozens of people and was unable to confirm the specifics around his leaving the company; one source within Apple told me information about Solnik is “incredibly restricted,” and another confirmed that even within Apple, few know exactly what happened.
Why hire someone that was previously selling "offensive security tools and exploits to governments" into a sensitive role like that? It's incredibly naive to think that just because you're employing them now that they are actually loyal to you. Surely the insider threat is greater than any expertise that person has. Just pay them a bug bounty for specific information and keep them at arms length. Finding high integrity security researchers to hire is more important than raw talent.