Ex Accenture Employee Faces Cyber Fraud
The Justice Department announced charges against a former senior manager at a government contractor, for allegedly misleading auditors and the government about the security compliance
The Justice Department announced charges against Danielle Hillmer, a former senior manager at a government contractor, for allegedly misleading auditors and the government about the security compliance of a cloud platform. Hillmer, 53, of Chantilly, Virginia, is accused of concealing significant security deficiencies in her employer’s product, specifically its failure to implement controls required by the Department of Defense. This non-compliance centered on mandated security capabilities such as access controls, comprehensive logging, and proper monitoring.
The indictment states that the alleged fraudulent activity took place between March 2020 and November 2021. During this period, Hillmer is accused of attempting to impede and obstruct product audits. She allegedly achieved this by actively hiding security issues and instructing other personnel to take similar actions to conceal the platform’s true security posture. Her actions were designed to obscure the fact that the product did not meet the standards of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and the Department of Defense’s Risk Management Framework.
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Furthermore, the charges allege that Hillmer falsely asserted that the platform had successfully implemented all necessary security measures. To further the alleged scheme and secure government business, she is accused of submitting official documents containing materially false and misleading information. The goal of these misrepresentations was to successfully obtain and subsequently maintain valuable contracts with the federal government for the cloud platform service.
The alleged activity occurred while Danielle Hillmer was employed at Accenture and overseeing the management of its cloud services products. The details of the charges align with information Accenture had previously disclosed in an SEC filing in 2023. That filing noted that Accenture Federal Services (AFS) had made a voluntary disclosure to the U.S. government, which resulted in an investigation. The internal review and subsequent disclosure concerned whether AFS employees had provided inaccurate submissions to an assessor evaluating the service on behalf of the government, and whether the offering fully implemented required federal security controls.
In response to inquiries, an Accenture spokesperson confirmed the company’s cooperation with authorities. The spokesperson stated that Accenture had proactively brought the matter to the government’s attention following its own internal review and has been cooperating extensively with the ongoing investigation. Hillmer was charged with multiple felonies, including wire fraud, major government fraud, and obstruction of a federal audit, as part of the cybersecurity fraud scheme. If convicted, she could face a prison sentence spanning decades.
Source: Former Accenture Worker Charged In Connection With Cybersecurity Fraud Scheme