In August, the United States filed a Complaint-in-Intervention in a False Claims Act (FCA) whistleblower suit alleging that the Georgia Institute of Technology (“Georgia Tech”) and an affiliate, Georgia Tech Research Corp. (GTRC), violated cybersecurity requirements in connection with Department of Defense (DOD) contracts.
The complaint and accompanying press release reflect the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) heightened focus on using the FCA to address cybersecurity issues. The DOJ’s Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative, designed to combat new and emerging cyber threats to sensitive information and critical systems, uses the federal FCA to pursue cyber-related fraud by government contractors and grant recipients.
The U.S. government joins a case originally filed in 2022 by two qui tam whistleblowers, both senior members of Georgia Tech’s cybersecurity compliance team. Both complaints allege that the defendants failed to comply with federal cybersecurity requirements and attempted to obscure this failure by submitting false claims to the government.
In this episode of the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast: How does the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) intend to leverage its enforcement authority under the False Claims Act to advance DOJ’s recently announced Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative?
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