Ex-L3Harris Cyber Boss Pleads Guilty to Selling Trade Secrets to Russian Firm

A former executive of a company that sells Zero-day vulnerability The U.S. and its allies pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C. to embezzlement charges for selling at least $1.3 million worth of trade secrets to a buyer in Russia, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Peter Williams, a 39-year-old Australian living in the United States, faces two charges related to trade secret theft. As part of the plea agreement, Williams faces 87 to 108 months in prison and up to $300,000 in fines. He must pay back $1.3 million.

Williams will be sentenced early next year. Until then, he will remain under house arrest in his apartment, must undergo electronic monitoring and is allowed to leave his home for one hour per day, according to the plea agreement.

Williams had worked as a director at L3 Harris Trenchant—a subsidiary of U.S.-based defense contractor L3 Harris Technologies—for less than a year when he resigned from the company in mid-August for unspecified reasons, according to UK Corporate Records. Prosecutors, however, told the hearing that he had been employed by the company or its predecessor since at least 2016. Worked for the Australian Signals DirectorateIn the 2010s. The ASD is the equivalent of the US 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 ability to conduct hacking operations using tools sold by Trenchant and other companies.

Department of Justice this month Accused Williams Stealing eight trade secrets from two companies and selling them to a buyer in Russia between April 2022 and August 2025, a period that coincided with Williams’ employment at L3 Trenchant.

The document does not name the two companies, nor does it say whether the buyer, described as a Russia-based software broker, was affiliated with the Russian government.

Prosecutors said the unidentified Russian company was in the business of buying zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits from researchers and selling them to other Russian companies and “non-NATO countries.” Prosecutors also read a September 2023 social media post by the Russian company that said it had increased payouts from $200,000 to $20 million for some mobile exploits. A Posted on September 26, 2023, in X Similar language was used by Operation Zero, which describes itself as the “only Russian-based zero-day vulnerability procurement platform.”

Operation Zero did not immediately respond to a request for comment.