Cybersecurity professor targeted by FBI has not been detained, lawyer says

By AJ Vicens

(Reuters) -A prominent Indiana University cybersecurity professor who was abruptly fired and disappeared from public view has not been detained and there are no pending criminal charges against him or his wife, a lawyer representing him told Reuters.

Attorney Jason Covert's statement is the first official word about the fate of XiaoFeng Wang, and his wife, Nianli Ma, since March 28, when the FBI and Department of Homeland Security carried out simultaneous searches on two homes associated with the couple. That was also the same day the university terminated his employment.

Rumors in the cybersecurity community ran rife that couple were detained or arrested, and questions were raised as to what could have caused such a heavy law enforcement operation. Media reports cited colleagues and students who said the couple weren't responding to attempts to communicate with them.

Wang, who studied in China in the 1990s before coming to the U.S., has been a professor at Indiana University since 2004 and has been recognized by both the university and the cybersecurity community as a top mind in the field.

The FBI's Indianapolis field office "conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity," an FBI spokesperson told Reuters. The spokesperson would not answer questions about the nature of the allegations against Wang or when additional information would become available. 

DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Covert told Reuters neither Wang nor his wife has been arrested, and there "are no pending criminal charges as far as we are aware." 

"Prof. Wang and Ms. Ma are thankful for the outpouring of support they have received from colleagues at Indiana University and their peers across the academic community," Covert said in a statement. "They look forward to clearing their names and resuming their successful careers at the conclusion of this investigation."

Covert declined to comment on the couple's physical location.

Riana Pfefferkorn, a researcher at Stanford University, filed a motion on April 1 asking a federal judge in the Southern District of Indiana to unseal the warrants and supporting materials, including supporting affidavits, used by the government to enable the searches of Wang and Ma's homes.

A federal judge on April 2 ordered the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana to respond to the motion by April 17. A spokesperson for that office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

FIRED IMMEDIATELY

Wang was until March 28 the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, according to a since-deleted faculty page on the university's website. Ma was also employed at the university as a lead systems analyst and programmer at the Herman B. Wells Library, according to a since-deleted page previously hosted on the university's site.

Alex Tanford, an Indiana University professor of law and president of the Bloomington chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he had been in touch with Wang including on the day of his firing.

Tanford told Reuters that a complaint was filed with the university in mid-February accusing Wang of research misconduct by failing to properly disclose who was principal investigator on a grant application and not fully listing all co-authors on an article, a charge that "seemed trivial."

By March 13 or 14 "the matter escalated," Tanford said, and Wang was informed he would be temporarily suspended, banned from his office and denied access to computers, research and data while the investigation continued, interim measures that are permitted under the university's research misconduct policy.

On March 28, the day federal agents carried out operations at his home, Wang received a letter from Indiana University Provost Rahul Shrivastav saying he was being "terminated immediately" with no reason given, Tanford said. The immediate firing runs contrary to university policy and is "unlawful," Tanford said.

Tanford said Wang's department told the union Wang had accepted a job elsewhere next year, and normal advanced notice was provided so the school could plan accordingly. Covert did not immediately respond to a question about Wang's employment plans for next year.

"It is not grounds for termination and I have never heard of it happening in the 45 years I have been at this university," Tanford said.

"If the administration can fire a tenured professor without Due Process and in violation of a policy approved by our Trustees, none of us is safe," he said.

The union sent a letter to university leadership on March 31 asking the university to revoke the firing and provide Wang due process, according to a copy shared with Reuters.

University spokesperson Mark Bode told Reuters in an email that the university "was recently made aware of a federal investigation" of a faculty member. "At the direction of the FBI, Indiana University will not make any public comments regarding this investigation."

According to an archived version of Wang's resume, which linked to a since-deleted university page that was live as recently as September 2024, Wang studied at two Chinese universities in the 1990s and worked as a software engineer and IT specialist before earning a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004, when he became an assistant professor at Indiana University.  

(Reporting by AJ Vicens in Detroit; Editing by Chris Sanders, Leslie Adler and Edwina Gibbs)