A major security breach at the Pentagon has exposed sensitive personal information belonging to nearly 3 million individuals, according to a U.S. defense official. The incident involves the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), one of the Department of Defense’s primary repositories for personnel records, and affects both living and deceased military and civilian personnel.
The unauthorized access impacted 2.76 million living individuals and 294,000 deceased persons. Exposed data included Social Security numbers and detailed information regarding the specific jobs held by active-duty troops, reserve forces, civilian employees, contractors, retirees, veterans, and military family members. The DMDC maintains over 60 million personnel records in total.
“A Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) information system experienced unauthorized access of personally identifiable information by a small number of unauthorized users between October 2025 and July 2026,” the official stated. The vulnerability was discovered in July 2026, at which point DMDC immediately remediated the issue. Military Times first reported on the breach last week.
Defense officials emphasized that there is currently no evidence that the exposed data has been misused. In response to the incident, the agency is offering identity protection and credit monitoring resources to those affected. The scope of the breach has raised national security concerns due to the sensitivity of the job-related details contained in the files.
The revelation of the Pentagon breach coincides with a separate cyber incident involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On Friday, the FBI notified employees of a breach on its job application website, FBIJobs.gov. A threat actor claimed it would publish data including FBI employees' names, home addresses, contact information, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and emergency contact details. Although the FBI stated the impacted system was unclassified, the bureau is operating under the assumption that every FBI employee’s personal information was compromised.
The FBI has advised impacted employees to maintain situational awareness and avoid answering suspicious calls. Internal briefings have been scheduled for affected staff, and the bureau warned employees not to speak with the media, instructing them to call 911 if they believe media representatives are trespassing.
<small>Source: Yahoo News — read the original story there.</small>