"Williams, a 39-year-old Australian citizen who was known inside the company as "Doogie," admitted to prosecutors that he stole and sold eight exploits, or " zero-days," which are security flaws in software that are unknown to its maker and are extremely valuable to hack into a target's devices. Williams said some of those exploits, which he stole from his own company Trenchant, were worth $35 million, but he only received $1.3 million in cryptocurrency from the Russian broker."
"Thanks to his position and tenure at Trenchant, according to the court document, Williams "maintained 'super-user' access" to the company's "internal, access-controlled, multi-factor authenticated" secure network where its hacking tools were stored, and to which only employees with a "need to know" had access. As a "super-user," Williams could view all the activity, logs, and data associated with Trenchant's secure network, including its exploits, the court document notes. Williams' company network access gave him "full access" to Trenchant's proprietary information and trade secrets."
Peter Williams, 39, served as general manager of Trenchant, a division of L3Harris that builds surveillance and hacking tools for Western governments. He pleaded guilty to stealing and selling eight zero-day exploits between 2022 and July 2025. Some exploits were valued at $35 million, but Williams received about $1.3 million in cryptocurrency from a Russian broker. Williams maintained super-user access to Trenchant's internal, access-controlled, multi-factor-authenticated network and could view logs and data. He used a portable external hard drive to transfer exploits from secure networks in Sydney and Washington D.C. onto a personal device before selling them.
Read at TechCrunch
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