Former Accenture employee charged by DoJ for cloud security fraud

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A former Accenture employee has been charged by the DoJ
The employee is accused of misrepresenting security frameworks to gain and maintain government contracts
Accenture didn't comply with FedRamp, but agencies were led to believe it did

The US Justice Department has confirmed a former product manager at Accenture, Hilmer, has been charged after allegedly lying to government customers about security measures within cloud products.

According to the DoJ, the Accenture cloud platform did not meet the requirements for security controls - but the defendant lied to potential customers to conceal security issues, and instructed others to follow suit.

Specifically, Accenture didn’t comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) - the framework used by federal agencies to ensure continuous assessment, authorization, and monitoring of cloud products and services.

False representation

The former employee is also accused of submitting documents containing false information to obtain and continue government contracts. As per the indictment, Hilmer ‘made false and misleading representations to the U.S. Army to induce it to sponsor the platform for a Department of Defense provisional authorization’.

‘Hillmer is charged with two counts of wire fraud, one count of major government fraud and two counts of obstruction of a federal audit. If convicted, Hillmer faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for wire fraud, a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for major government fraud and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each count of obstruction of a federal audit.‘

SecurityWeek reached out to Accenture and a spokesperson gave the following statement;

“As previously disclosed in our public filings, we proactively brought this matter to the government’s attention following an internal review. We have cooperated extensively with the government’s investigation and continue to do so. We remain dedicated to operating with the highest ethical standards as we serve all our clients, including the federal government.”

Via: SecurityWeek

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Ellen has been writing for almost four years, with a focus on post-COVID policy whilst studying for BA Politics and International Relations at the University of Cardiff, followed by an MA in Political Communication. Before joining TechRadar Pro as a Junior Writer, she worked for Future Publishing’s MVC content team, working with merchants and retailers to upload content.

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