Pentagon Severs Chinese Access To Cloud Servers, Hegseth Orders Microsoft Probe

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has severed Chinese contractors’ access to Pentagon cloud data systems under a Microsoft project while ordering a wider inquiry into the system, the Secretary announced Wednesday.

“The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments: It’s over,” Hegseth said in a video announcement of the change.

The Pentagon will no longer permit Chinese nationals to work on Defense Department cloud servers, he explained. Hegseth also ordered a third-party audit of Microsoft’s ‘digital escorts’ program, which employed the engineers, along with an internal investigation.

Microsoft’s system used the so-called “digital escorts” — employees with security clearances but often limited technical expertise — to input commands from more experienced China-based engineers into Pentagon cloud servers. The system had been in place for over a decade, as first reported by ProPublica.

“I’m also tasking the Department of Defense experts with a separate investigation of the digital escort program and Chinese Microsoft employees that were involved in it,” Hegseth said in his announcement. “These investigations will help us determine the impact of this Digital Escort workaround. Did they put anything into code we didn’t know about? We’re going to find out.”

One escort familiar with the program told ProPublica that the workers couldn’t tell what the Chinese engineers were actually doing when they were in the system. Microsoft employed around 50 escorts, with each one handling hundreds of interactions with the China-based workers.

“Secretary Hegseth and the Trump administration are absolutely right to launch a full-scale investigation into Microsoft’s dangerous digital escort program, which could potentially give Chinese nationals access to sensitive military information,” Michael Lucci, CEO of State Armor, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “Microsoft’s gross irresponsibility in creating this vulnerability should be fully exposed, and if laws were broken, those responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Various employees had warned Microsoft about the risks of the program, saying the China-based engineers had access to server details that malicious hackers could readily exploit, according to ProPublica.

“It’s America first, and it’s common sense,” Hegseth said in the announcement. “This never should have happened in the first place, but once we found out about it, we’ve attacked it aggressively from the beginning, and we’re going to follow all the way through the tape to make sure that this is addressed.”

Microsoft did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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