A 39-year-old Australian previously employed by US defense contractor L3Harris has been sentenced to just over seven years in prison for selling eight zero-day exploits to Russian exploit broker Operation Zero in exchange for millions of dollars.
Peter Williams pleaded guilty in October 2025 to two counts of trade secret theft. In addition to the prison term, Mr. Williams was sentenced to three years of supervised release with special conditions and ordered to forfeit illegal proceeds, including real estate, clothing, jewelry, and luxury watches purchased with the cryptocurrency payments he received in return for selling the exploit.
The connection between this incident and Operation Zero was revealed late last year by cybersecurity journalist Kim Zetter. The nature of the exploit is currently unknown. However, a sentencing memorandum released earlier this month found that the tool “may have been used against all kinds of victims, civilians and military personnel, around the world, and involved all kinds of crimes, from cyber fraud, theft, and ransomware to state-directed espionage and offensive cyber operations against military targets.”
“Mr. Williams used his senior position at a U.S. defense contractor to enrich himself at the expense of the United States and his employer,” said Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg for National Security Affairs. “The tools he compromised were intended to protect this country, but were instead auctioned off to Russian bidders.”
Williams sold the trade secrets in virtual currency for up to $4 million, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia. The exploit could have given Russia access to millions of digital devices, Pirro added.
The theft of the eight cyber exploit components occurred over a three-year period from 2022 to 2025. The zero-day exploit is designed to be sold exclusively to the U.S. government and some allied countries. It is estimated that this action caused L3Harris to suffer financial losses of $35 million.
In parallel, the U.S. State Department announced the designation of Operation Zero (also known as Matrix LLC) under the American Intellectual Property Protection Act (PAIPA) with Sergey Sergeevich Zelenyuk and Special Technology Services LLC FZ (STS) in connection with trade secret theft.
Zelenyuk is a Russian national and the director and owner of Operation Zero. He also set up an STS in the UAE to do business with various countries in Asia and the Middle East, likely to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Russian bank accounts.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned Zelenyuk, Operation Zero, STS, and four other related individuals and entities for acquiring and distributing cyber tools harmful to U.S. national security. According to the Treasury Department, Operation Zero allegedly sold tools obtained from Williams to at least one unauthorized user.
Operation Zero is offering up to $4 million in bounties for Telegram exploits and up to $20 million for tools that could be used to compromise Android and iPhone devices. The exploit broker is believed to have been recruiting hackers to assist in its operations and working to establish business relationships with foreign intelligence agencies through social media. It has been active since at least 2021.
“Zelenyuk and Operation Zero state that they will only sell the exploits they acquire to customers in non-NATO countries. Zelenyuk, through Operation Zero, intends to sell the exploits to foreign intelligence agencies,” the Treasury Department said.
“Zelenyuk and Operation Zero also aim to develop other cyberintelligence systems, such as spyware and methods to extract personally identifying information and other sensitive data uploaded by users of artificial intelligence applications such as large-scale language models.”
The names of other sanctioned individuals and entities are listed below.
Marina Evgenievna Vasanovich, Zelenyuk’s assistant Adijon Mahmudovich Mamashoev, Oleg Vyacheslavovich Kucherov, for having a working relationship with Operation Zero (Kucherov is also suspected of being a member of the Trickbot cybercriminal organization); Advanced Security Solutions, the exploit brokerage founded by Mamashoev, offers bounties for exploits of US software;
“Peter Williams stole trade secrets from U.S. defense contractors regarding highly sensitive cyber capabilities and sold them to brokers whose clients were the Russian government, putting our national security and countless potential victims at risk,” said Roman Rosavsky, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.
“This is a clear warning to anyone who is willing to put greed over country. If you betray your position of trust and sell sensitive American technology to a foreign adversary, the FBI will not rest until you are brought to justice.”
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