- A former Accenture employee has been indicted by the Department of Justice
- The employee is accused of distorting security frameworks to obtain and maintain government contracts
- Accenture did not comply with FedRamp rules, but the agencies believed it did
The US Department of Justice has confirmed that former Accenture product manager Helmer has been charged after 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 issues, and instructed others to do the same.
Specifically, Accenture did not comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) — the framework used by federal agencies to ensure ongoing evaluation, licensing, 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. According to Indictment“Helmer made false and misleading statements to the U.S. Army to induce it to sponsor a temporary authorization platform from the Department of Defense.”
“Helmer is charged with two counts of wire fraud, one count of grand government fraud and two counts of obstructing a federal audit. If convicted, Helmer faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud count, a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison for the grand government fraud count and a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count of obstructing a federal audit.”
SecurityWeek reached out to Accenture and a spokesperson provided 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 committed to operating with the highest ethical standards as we serve all of our clients, including the federal government.”
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