- The Justice Department has charged a former Accenture employee
- The employee is accused of misrepresenting security frameworks to obtain and maintain government contracts.
- Accenture didn’t comply with FedRamp, but agencies were led to believe it did
The US Department of Justice has confirmed that a former Accenture product manager, Hilmer, has been charged with allegedly lying to government clients about security measures within cloud products.
According to the Department of Justice, Accenture’s cloud platform did not meet requirements for security controls, but the defendant lied to potential clients to hide security problems and instructed others to follow his lead.
Specifically, Accenture failed to comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), the framework used by federal agencies to ensure the evaluation, authorization and continuous monitoring of cloud products and services.
False representation
The former employee is also accused of submitting documents containing false information to obtain and pursue government contracts. According to the indictment, Hilmer “made false and misleading statements to the U.S. military 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 sentence of 20 years in prison for wire fraud, a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for major government fraud, and a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count of obstruction of a federal audit.
SecurityWeek reached out to Accenture and a spokesperson made 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 of our customers, including the federal government.”
Via: Safety Week
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