Akamai Employee Arrested on Wire Fraud Charges. Accused of Trying to Sell Information to a Foreign Government.

An employee of Akamai Technologies was arrested and charged today in federal court with secretly providing confidential business information to a person he believed to be an agent of a foreign government.

Elliot Doxer, 42 years old, of Brookline, Massachusetts, was charged in a Complaint with one count of wire fraud.

Today’s news did not come as a surprise to Akamai, as the Department of Justice noted that the company has cooperated fully in the investigation.

While disturbing, Akamai customers have little to worry about, as Doxer is a non-executive employee working as a collections analyst. Typically positions like this don’t have access to any critical systems or customer data. So if you’re an Akamai customer, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this as far as your data and infrastructure go. (The data was sent to an FBI agent, NOT a foreign government as far as we know) The Complaint alleges, however, that Doxer provided the undercover agent a list of Akamai’s customers, some contracts between Akamai and various customers revealing contact, services, pricing, and termination date information.

Doxer also broadly described Akamai’s physical and computer security systems and said that he could travel to the foreign country and could support special and sensitive operations in his local area if needed, According to the Complaint.

The Complaint alleges that on June 22, 2006, Doxer sent an email to a (unnamed) foreign country’s consulate in Boston stating that he was willing to provide any information he had access to that could help the foreign country. It is alleged that in later communications, Doxer said his chief desire “was to help our homeland and our war against our enemies.”

Doxer allegedly asked for $3,000 in light of the risks he was taking. The foreign government cooperated with the United States in the investigation. The Complaint alleges that in September 2007, a U.S. federal agent posing undercover as an agent of the foreign country spoke to Doxer and established a “dead drop” where the agent and Doxer could exchange written communications. The Complaint further alleges that from September 2007 through March 2009, Doxer visited the “dead drop” at least 62 times to leave confidential business information, retrieve communications, or check for new communications.

If convicted, Doxer faces a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment, a three-year term of supervised release, a $250,000 fine or twice the gain or loss, whichever is highest, and restitution to the victim.

The case is being investigated by members of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Section and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William D. Weinreb and Scott Garland respectively in Ortiz’s Antiterrorism and National Security Unit and Computer Crimes Unit.

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