A US defense contractor who sold hacking tools to a Russian intermediary has been ordered to pay $10 million to his former employers

Peter Williams, a veteran cybersecurity executive who was head of hacking and surveillance technology at US defense company L3Harris, has been ordered to pay $10 million to his former employer. Williams was the central figure in one of the worst leaks of advanced hacking tools in the history of the United States and its closest allies.

On Wednesday, the judge ordered Williams to pay that amount in restitution in addition to the $1.3 million he had already been ordered to pay to L3Harris. Williams, a 39-year-old Australian citizen, previously worked for an Australian intelligence agency and until last year was Trenchant’s managing director. Trenchant emerged from the acquisition of two sister startups, the L3Harris division, which develops advanced spyware and hacking tools and sells them to the US government and its allies in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, an alliance of five English-speaking countries that share classified intelligence with each other. In addition to the United States, the coalition includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Veteran cybersecurity reporter Kim Zetter first reported on the new payout order in her newsletter.

Williams’ attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Williams was arrested and accused of stealing seven unspecified trade secrets — almost certainly cyber exploits, code that hijacks software vulnerabilities and surveillance technology — from Trenchant and then selling them to Operation Zero. The Russian company acts as an intermediary, 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.

Williams made $1.3 million from the sale of trade secrets, which he used to buy luxury watches, a house near Washington, D.C., and family vacations. Trenchant told prosecutors she suffered losses of up to $35 million due to Williams’ theft.

US prosecutors said Williams “betrayed” the United States and its allies by giving Operation Zero, which the US government describes as “one of the world’s most dangerous exploit brokers”, tools that could have been used to hack “millions of computers and devices around the world.”

As TechCrunch previously reported, Williams leveraged his “full access” privilege to Trenchant’s internal network to pull tools from the company’s offices. After Williams sold the hacking tools to Operation Zero, some of them ended up being used by Russian government spies in Ukraine, and later Chinese cybercriminals, according to former L3Harris employees who identified the stolen code in cybersecurity research published by Google after investigating cyberattacks in which those tools were deployed.

Williams also tried to frame one of his employees for theft.