In Brief Posted: 1:50 PM PST · February 24, 2026 Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch Peter Williams, a former U.S. defense contractor boss, was sentenced on Tuesday to seven years in prison for stealing and selling his former company’s hacking and surveillance tools to a Russian firm. Reporters with Bloomberg and Cyberscoop first reported Williams’ sentencing.  Williams was the general manager of Trenchant, a division of the defense contractor L3Harris that sells hacking and surveillance tools — typically known as zero-days — to the U.S. government and a select group of its top allies, known as the Five Eyes, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.  Last year, Williams, 39, an Australian citizen who resides in Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to selling seven Trenchant trade secrets to a Russian broker. While prosecutors didn’t name the company at the time, the U.S.…