Hackers gained access to data of millions of people in Pentagon system

As a result of a massive leak from the Pentagon's personnel database, personal data of more than 3 million people were exposed, including military personnel and civilian employees. Among the compromised information were Social Security numbers and details about people's positions and work in US Department of Defense structures.

According to ABC News, citing a representative of the American defense agency, the incident affected 2.76 million living people and about 294,000 deceased. In total, we are talking about more than 3.05 million records.

Unauthorized access occurred in the information system of the Defense Manpower Data Center, one of the Pentagon's main personnel data repositories. The intruders had access to the system from October 2025 until July 2026, when the vulnerability was discovered and closed.

DMDC stores data on active-duty military and reservists, civilian employees, contractors, veterans, retirees, and military family members. In total, the center's databases contain more than 60 million personal records.

Of particular concern is that among the disclosed information were not only personal identification data, but also information about the work and positions of military and civilian employees. Such an array of information could potentially pose a risk from a national security standpoint.

The Pentagon stated that at this time they have not found evidence of the stolen data being used for malicious purposes. People whose information may have fallen into the wrong hands are being offered credit monitoring and personal data protection services.

The fact of the incident was previously reported by American media, but now the Pentagon has named the specific scale of the leak. It became known against the backdrop of another major cyber incident in US federal structures: the FBI is separately investigating the compromise of its FBIJobs.gov employment portal.