Elliot Doxer was caught when he handed over confidential information about Akamai to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli consular official in Boston.
Over several months in 2007, Doxer passed on confidential information about Akamai to James Cromer, a man he thought was an Israeli intelligence officer.
The information included a list of Akamai's clients and contracts, information about the company's security practices, and the names, e-mail addresses and mobile numbers of 1,300 Akamai employees.
Doxer's motivation was to help Israel in exchange for information on his son and estranged wife, who lived outside the US, according to IDG News.
Doxer was arrested in October 2010 and charged with committing foreign economic espionage. He is only the eighth person ever to be prosecuted in the US for trying to sell corporate secrets to foreign governments and faces 15 years in prison when sentenced in November.
According to Akamai, there is no evidence that Doxer passed on confidential information to anyone besides the FBI agent.
This story was first published by Computer Weekly