Former L3Harris cyber boss admits to selling trade secrets to Russian company
A former executive A company that sells zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits to the United States and its allies pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., to selling trade secrets worth at least $1.3 million to a buyer in Russia, U.S. prosecutors said.
Peter Williams, a 39-year-old Australian native living in the United States, faces two counts of theft of trade secrets. Williams faces a maximum of 20 years in prison (10 years on each count) and a possible fine of $250,000, or up to twice the amount of damages resulting from his crimes. However, prosecutors noted at the hearing that based on his particular circumstances, sentencing guidelines indicated he would likely face between 87 and 108 months in prison and a fine of up to $300,000. As part of the settlement, he agreed to pay $1.3 million in restitution.
Williams will be sentenced early next year. Until then, he will remain under house arrest in his apartment, must be monitored electronically and is allowed to leave the house for one hour each day, according to the agreement.
Williams worked as a director at L3 Harris Trenchant — a subsidiary of US-based defense contractor L3Harris Technologies — for less than a year when he resigned from the company in mid-August for undisclosed reasons. However, prosecutors said at the hearing that he had been employed by the company or its predecessor since at least 2016. Prior to his time at Trenchant, Williams reportedly worked for the Australian Signals Authority in the 2010s. ASD is the US equivalent of the National Security Agency and is responsible for the cyber defense of Australian government systems as well as gathering foreign signals intelligence. As part of its signals intelligence work, ASD has the authority to conduct hacking operations using a variety of tools sold by Trenchant and other companies.
This month, the Justice Department charged Williams with stealing eight trade secrets from two companies and selling them to a buyer in Russia between April 2022 and August 2025, a time period that partially coincides with Williams’ employment at L3 Trenchant.
The document did not name the two companies, nor did it say whether the buyer, described by prosecutors as a Russia-based software broker, was connected to the Russian government.
Prosecutors said the unidentified Russian company was buying zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits from researchers and selling them to other Russian companies and “non-NATO countries.” Prosecutors also studied a September 2023 social media post by the Russian company in which it said it had raised the payout for some cellphone abuses to between $200,000 and $20 million. A September 26, 2023 post on X by Operation Zero, which describes itself as “the only Russian-based zero-day vulnerability shopping platform,” used identical language.
