Story perspectives

Pentagon Confirms Breach Exposed 2.76 Million People’s Data

By Drooid · Sep 29, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

The U.S. Pentagon confirmed a breach of its Defense Manpower Data Center exposing personal data of millions.
The intrusion began in October 2025 and stayed undetected until July 16 2026.
The breach exposed unencrypted records of 2.76 million living individuals and 294 000 deceased persons.
Pentagon patched the vulnerability on July 16 2026.
Affected individuals received letters on Sept. 18 offering a year of free credit-monitoring.

History

Historical Context

In March 2014 OPM first detected a breach that expanded into the June 2015 disclosure of roughly 22 million federal personnel records stolen by a Chinese state-sponsored group later linked to APT10. Earlier Inspector General warnings about OPM’s security flaws and the breach’s scale forced the Department of Defense to adopt zero-trust architectures across its networks.

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Story summary

The U.S. Pentagon confirmed a breach of its Defense Manpower Data Center exposing personal data of millions.
The intrusion began in October 2025 and stayed undetected until July 16 2026.
The breach exposed unencrypted records of 2.76 million living individuals and 294 000 deceased persons.
Pentagon patched the vulnerability on July 16 2026.
Affected individuals received letters on Sept. 18 offering a year of free credit-monitoring.

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