Pete Hegseth, secretary of the Department of Defense and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, has signed a memo initiating a two-week review to ensure that cloud services across DOD are free of any foreign involvement that could compromise the security of U.S. military systems.
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Use of China-Based Engineers to Support DOD Cloud Services
A ProPublica investigation has found that Microsoft is using China-based engineers to help maintain DOD cloud and computer systems with little oversight by U.S. personnel, a situation that could expose DOD networks to Chinese hackers.
The nearly decade-old system depends on “digital escorts,” or U.S. citizens with security clearances who oversee the work of these Microsoft engineers in China on the Pentagon’s cloud platforms.
According to ProPublica, these digital escorts lack the technical expertise to monitor foreign engineers who have more advanced skills.
“This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Hegseth said in a video posted Friday on X.
“Now this was a legacy system created over a decade ago during the Obama administration, but we have to ensure the digital systems that we use here at the Defense Department are ironclad and impenetrable, and that’s why today I’m announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services, effective immediately,” the DOD secretary added.
Microsoft’s Response to Reports on Use of China-Based Engineers
Following the release of the ProPublica report, Microsoft said it will cease using China-based engineers to support its cloud services for DOD.
“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services,” Frank Shaw, a spokesperson for Microsoft, said in a post on X.
“We remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,” Shaw added.
