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Chinese nationals will no longer be allowed to manage Pentagon cloud services

Date:
Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:07:04 +0000

Description:
The US Defense department will now review who is managing its cloud services.

FULL STORY

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the
involvement of Chinese nationals in managing cloud services for the Pentagon
and wider US military. 

For nearly a decade, Microsoft has used Chinese coders, remotely supervised 
by US contractors to support sensitive Department of Defense cloud systems -
and if youre thinking America First and common sense, this doesnt pass either
of those tests," Hesgeth said. 

The declaration comes after a ProPublica report claimed Microsofts use of
Chinese engineers to maintain Department of Defense computer systems with
minimal supervision by US personnel was inherently risky - but Microsoft has
said it will soon stop using these China based-engineers for US military tech
support.

Digital escorts 

These workers were supervised by digital escorts - who were found to be 
mainly low-skilled and low-paid workers with very little coding experience. 

One such escort told ProPublica ; were trusting that what theyre doing isnt
malicious, but we really cant tell. 

The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud
environments, its over, Hegseth went on. Were requiring a third-party audit 
of Microsofts digital escort program, including the code and the submissions
by Chinese nationals. 

Not only that, but Hegseth will also require the Department of Defense to
carry out a separate investigation of the digital escort program and the
Chinese Microsoft employees involved. 

The program was designed to comply with contracting rules, but it exposed the
department to unacceptable risk, he argued. 

These investigations will help us determine the impact of this digital escort
workaround. Did they put anything in the code that we dont know about? Were
going to find out. 

Going forward, all software vendors for the DoD will also have to identify 
and terminate any Chinese involvement in DoD systems. 

It blows my mind that Im even saying these things, that we allowed it to
happen - thats why were attacking it so hard, Hegseth said.

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/chinese-nationals-will-no-longer-be-allowed-to-m
anage-pentagon-cloud-services

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