Pentagon gets pwned as breach exposes sensitive data on nearly three million military and civilian personnel

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) experienced a data breach between October 2025 and July 2026, allowing unauthorized users to access and potentially exfiltrate data on 2.76 million records relating to living personnel, and an additional 294,000 records relating to deceased individuals. According to ABC News, some of the exposed information included Social Security numbers and the job details of both military and civilian personnel.

“A Defense Manpower Data Center information system experienced unauthorized access of personally identifiable information by a small number of unauthorized users between October 2025 and July 2026. Upon discovery, DMDC immediately remediated the vulnerability,” a U.S. defense official said in a statement. However, they also added that there hasn’t been any evidence of misuse of the compromised data at this time.

DMDC serves as the Pentagon’s central personnel database, storing information on active-duty and reserve members of the military, as well as civilian employees, contractors, retirees, veterans, and even military family …