L3Harris Cybersecurity Executive Ordered to Pay $10 Million After Selling Hacking Tools to Russian Broker

A federal judge has ordered Peter Williams, the former head of the hacking and surveillance technology division at U.S. defense contractor L3Harris, to pay $10 million in restitution to his former employer — a penalty imposed on top of $1.3 million he had already been ordered to repay.

Williams, a 39-year-old Australian citizen who previously worked in one of Australia's intelligence agencies, served as general manager of Trenchant, L3Harris's division that develops advanced spyware and hacking tools for the U.S. government and its allies within the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

The Five Eyes coalition comprises the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — five English-speaking nations that share classified intelligence with one another.

Prosecutors accused Williams of stealing seven unspecified trade secrets from Trenchant — almost certainly cyber exploits and surveillance technology — and selling them to Operation Zero, a Russian firm that acts as a broker buying and selling hacking tools and says it works exclusively with the Russian government and local companies.

Williams pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. He made $1.3 million from the sale of the stolen materials, which he used to purchase luxury watches, a house near Washington, D.C., and family vacations, according to court records.

Trenchant told prosecutors it suffered losses of up to $35 million as a result of Williams's theft.

U.S. prosecutors said Williams "betrayed" the United States and its allies by providing Operation Zero — which the U.S. government calls "one of the world's most nefarious exploit brokers" — with tools that could have been used to hack "millions of computers and devices around the world."

Williams took advantage of his "full access" to Trenchant's internal network to remove the tools from the company's offices, prosecutors said. After he sold the materials to Operation Zero, some of them were subsequently used by Russian government spies in Ukraine and later by Chinese cybercriminals, according to former L3Harris employees who recognized the stolen code in cybersecurity research published by Google following investigations into those cyberattacks.

Williams also attempted to frame one of his own employees for the theft, according to the same account.

Veteran cybersecurity reporter Kim Zetter first reported the new restitution order in her newsletter. Williams's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

The case stands as one of the most damaging leaks of advanced hacking tools in the recent history of the United States and its closest allies, underscoring the persistent insider-threat risk facing defense contractors that develop offensive cyber capabilities for government clients. With the new $10 million restitution order, scrutiny of the safeguards governing access to sensitive tools at firms like Trenchant is likely to intensify.

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