- A former Accenture employee has been charged by the DoJ
- The employee is accused of misrepresenting security frameworks to obtain and maintain government contracts
- Accenture did not comply with FedRamp, but agencies were led to believe that it did
The US Department of Justice has confirmed that a former Accenture product manager, Hilmer, has been charged after allegedly lying to government clients about security measures in cloud products.
According to the DoJ, the Accenture cloud platform did not meet security control requirements – but the defendant lied to potential customers to hide security issues and instructed others to follow suit.
Specifically, Accenture did not comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) – the framework used by federal agencies to ensure continuous assessment, approval and monitoring of cloud products and services.
False manufacturing
The former employee is also accused of submitting documents containing false information to obtain and continue government contracts. According to the indictment, Hilmer “made false and misleading statements to the US Army to induce it to sponsor the platform for a preliminary authorization from the Department of Defense”.
‘Hillmer is charged with two counts of wire fraud, one count of grand larceny 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 contacted Accenture and a spokesperson provided the following statement;
“As previously disclosed in our public records, 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 clients, including the federal government.”
Via: SecurityWeek
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