An Australian man pleaded guilty in US court on Wednesday to stealing trade secrets from his employer and selling them to a Russian cyber-tools broker.

The US Department of Justice said on Wednesday that Peter Williams, 39, an Australian living in Washington DC, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of the trade secrets. The agency said Williams stole the material over a three-year period while working for a US defence contractor, including information on national security-focused software.

That software was meant to be sold exclusively to the US government and its allies. But the justice department said the Russian broker Williams sold the secrets to advertises itself as a reseller of cyber-tools to customers, including the Russian government.

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