A little-known Microsoft program could expose the Defense Department to hackers(propublica.org)
propublica.org
A little-known Microsoft program could expose the Defense Department to hackers
https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-digital-escorts-pentagon-defense-department-china-hackers
58 comments
How does the vendor make sure you're not doing anything malicious if they don't have the skills to understand the change?
It sounds like the issue here isn't that the vendor doing the escort is a Chinese national, it's that the engineer making the change is a Chinese national in China and they're using this escort system to check a box saying that because the changes themselves are being made by US nationals, they won't send PII or passwords back to China. But fundamentally a system where an untrusted person gets a less technical person to make a change for them seems inherently extremely high-risk.
It sounds like the issue here isn't that the vendor doing the escort is a Chinese national, it's that the engineer making the change is a Chinese national in China and they're using this escort system to check a box saying that because the changes themselves are being made by US nationals, they won't send PII or passwords back to China. But fundamentally a system where an untrusted person gets a less technical person to make a change for them seems inherently extremely high-risk.
Yep, I totally read the article incorrectly. You’re spot on and honestly I’ve asked myself the same question - though less from a national security perspective and more a “what’s the point of this extra tax to mitigate this incident”
>“what’s the point of this extra tax to mitigate this incident”
My guess is ATO requires that only US Citizens make changes to the system. However, Microsoft did not want to hire skilled US citizens for pay reasons so they hire unskilled US citizens and get trained Chinese nationals to direct US citizens to make changes they require.
So stockholders get another yacht because GovCloud is expensive but overhead is peanuts and national security be damned.
US Government should announce that their ATO has been revoked but we don't do that.
My guess is ATO requires that only US Citizens make changes to the system. However, Microsoft did not want to hire skilled US citizens for pay reasons so they hire unskilled US citizens and get trained Chinese nationals to direct US citizens to make changes they require.
So stockholders get another yacht because GovCloud is expensive but overhead is peanuts and national security be damned.
US Government should announce that their ATO has been revoked but we don't do that.
It seems pretty reasonable to consider the national security perspective when it seems like the potential risk is organized, nation state actors, and the potential mitigation is only the actual depth of security practices at play.
To put it another way, if the air gap is the only thing preventing the malicious system from doing its malicious thing, it seems like "defense in depth" is working but there's still a problem to solve. That is, making the malicious system not malicious.
> anything actually requiring clearance is serviced by the airgapped clouds and only folks with clearance are able to operate there
It seems like "operate" may be doing a lot of work here.
To put it another way, if the air gap is the only thing preventing the malicious system from doing its malicious thing, it seems like "defense in depth" is working but there's still a problem to solve. That is, making the malicious system not malicious.
> anything actually requiring clearance is serviced by the airgapped clouds and only folks with clearance are able to operate there
It seems like "operate" may be doing a lot of work here.
Yeah it seems like there are two issues here being conflated. The first is that non-US-persons are operating, by proxy, Azure assets that serve US Gov missions. The second is that those persons may be operating assets used in sensitive missions. Say IL4 and up.
The first is a little embarrassing for Microsoft, but a venal sin, not a mortal one. Makes them look like cheapskates offshoring work, instead of training local workers, but Ok, fine.
The second would be a mortal sin, assuming ( its not clear from the article whether) these non-US people are really operating at IL4 and up. Those assets really need US people especially at the higher impact levels. All of the above is public info described in FedRAMP standards.
The first is a little embarrassing for Microsoft, but a venal sin, not a mortal one. Makes them look like cheapskates offshoring work, instead of training local workers, but Ok, fine.
The second would be a mortal sin, assuming ( its not clear from the article whether) these non-US people are really operating at IL4 and up. Those assets really need US people especially at the higher impact levels. All of the above is public info described in FedRAMP standards.
I think you mis-read the article. Chinese engineers are operating US government cloud computers by proxy. The Chinese just don't see the computer screen. A US grunt copies & pastes the Chinese's commands into the system during a Teams call.
> The government is totally aware of where the operator boundary lies and this is still wildly mischaracterized.
Regardless of the program’s actual risk, it doesn’t seem that the government is fully aware of the program’s very existence. The article quotes the former CIO of the Pentagon as being surprised:
> John Sherman, who was chief information officer for the Department of Defense during the Biden administration, said he was surprised and concerned to learn of ProPublica’s findings. “I probably should have known about this,” he said. He told the news organization that the situation warrants a “thorough review by DISA, Cyber Command and other stakeholders that are involved in this.”
Regardless of the program’s actual risk, it doesn’t seem that the government is fully aware of the program’s very existence. The article quotes the former CIO of the Pentagon as being surprised:
> John Sherman, who was chief information officer for the Department of Defense during the Biden administration, said he was surprised and concerned to learn of ProPublica’s findings. “I probably should have known about this,” he said. He told the news organization that the situation warrants a “thorough review by DISA, Cyber Command and other stakeholders that are involved in this.”
This article is trying to show it as more scary than it is. The key points are: this is systems up to secret level only and sessions are recorded and watched by an escort; the escort is not as tech savvy as the engineers performing maintenance (who are also Microsoft employees, from many countries of origin) but there are other controls too; they can’t just run unsigned code etc.
The top secret stuff isn’t using this system; it’s using cleared staff.
The top secret stuff isn’t using this system; it’s using cleared staff.
This doesn't reflect what the article says. It only includes unclassified systems, not systems up to secret. That means anything from IL2 to IL5 (secret is impact level 6). In practice, IL2 is basically open access anyway, so it's really IL4 and IL5 as those levels actually restrict access. IL5 can include controlled unclassified information, but that's the highest possible. Remote access to IL5 systems also requires either a common access card issued by the DoD or personal PKI issued by an approved CA that still has to verify your background and identity in person before issuing you a certificate pair.
Along with everyone else they interviewed apparently, I had no idea this program even existed, but there have always been similar programs for other kinds of maintenance and support personnel. The people who repair the toilets and refrigerators in a SCIF don't have clearances. They get an escort, and everyone else in the building gets a warning before anyone needing an escort comes in, telling them to put away any sensitive data and either work on something unclassified or turn off your monitors and stop working completely until these people are done and leave again.
Along with everyone else they interviewed apparently, I had no idea this program even existed, but there have always been similar programs for other kinds of maintenance and support personnel. The people who repair the toilets and refrigerators in a SCIF don't have clearances. They get an escort, and everyone else in the building gets a warning before anyone needing an escort comes in, telling them to put away any sensitive data and either work on something unclassified or turn off your monitors and stop working completely until these people are done and leave again.
Thanks for the clarification; I was going off "While the ad said that specific technical skills were “highly preferred” and “nice to have,” the main prerequisite was possessing a valid “secret” level clearance issued by the Defense Department" from the article.
Secret because that's generally the lowest level clearance you can get that means something to the DoD. Essentially anyone working in and around the DoD has a secret clearance. Notably a clearance in itself means nothing without need to know.
Secret is still sensitive info and, if released, can cause harm or disruption.
Spying is not based on finding a single discovery of top secret information but a continuous process of pulling various pieces together. A "secret" item by itself may not cause bad things to happen but combined with other information could result in far greater damage.
Spying is not based on finding a single discovery of top secret information but a continuous process of pulling various pieces together. A "secret" item by itself may not cause bad things to happen but combined with other information could result in far greater damage.
> they can’t just run unsigned code etc.
They can do everything that the escort's account can, I don't think you can know what that is.
Since it's to solve technical issues, there's a high chance that low-level access will be required, often.
They can do everything that the escort's account can, I don't think you can know what that is.
Since it's to solve technical issues, there's a high chance that low-level access will be required, often.
> systems up to secret level only
These aren’t SECRET systems. If they were, that would be catastrophically bad and someone would go to jail.
These aren’t SECRET systems. If they were, that would be catastrophically bad and someone would go to jail.
Does any of this matter any more given that DOGE have total clearance bypass for uncleared staff?
Chinese engineers are operating US government cloud computers by proxy. The Chinese just don't see the computer screen--a proxy copies & pastes their commands and reads back the results.
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The "program" is a logistical one and not a software one in which Microsoft employs Chinese software engineers to be "overseen" by US citizens that have security clearances, but not necessarily the requisite experience for say a code review level of oversight.
>not a software
Appears the program has unfixed bugs and security holes anyway :\
Appears the program has unfixed bugs and security holes anyway :\
I am flabbergasted that the United States government does not have a requirement that anyone who touches their systems MUST be a vetted US citizen.
There’s no single overarching federal requirement when it comes to citizenship etc, but I would’ve assumed that ITAR requirements at the very least would’ve made this work US citizen on US soil only.
Permanent residents are US Persons for ITAR purposes
Which is a rule that needs to be changed.
I mean what does vetting even mean anymore? Our President is a convicted felon, our head of HHS thinks bad humors cause illness and vaccines cause Autism, our head of Education is dismantling her own organization with the approved sign off of the Supreme Court, of whom a solid percentage are accused sex offenders, and I could keep going with the utter circus our Government is currently.
Not only are qualifications not required they are apparently actively discouraged in favor of nepotism and connections.
Not only are qualifications not required they are apparently actively discouraged in favor of nepotism and connections.
The guy who heads up the Defense department was (drunkenly?) texting out secret plans to a journalist.
And the DNI regularly repeats Russian propaganda meant for Russian internal media... If it seems odd to anyone that our president seemed genuinely surprised that Putin was "tapping him along" consider who advises him. And our two most recent presidents both liked keeping classified documents in insecure locations. The situation is ridiculous and everyone just seems to shrug. I don't know if our overlords got way worse at this or they just stopped caring. We can't even get a high quality supervillain to rule us anymore.
I knew a guy with clearance that cashed out 100% of his retirement to fly to Moscow to meet a sex worker he'd be involved with online. It never affected his clearance.
Dude would run his mouth about stuff he shouldn't tell people under normal circumstances. There's no way he didn't tell the sex worker secret stuff.
Dude would run his mouth about stuff he shouldn't tell people under normal circumstances. There's no way he didn't tell the sex worker secret stuff.
So the digital escorts are basically human kvm switches to firewall things off... seems like a bad program.
Did I miss it, but what do these "digital escorts" actually do. The article doesn't seem to actually explain it.
Edit: It's people who watch over what foriegn engineers are doing.
Edit: It's people who watch over what foriegn engineers are doing.
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It doesn't seem amazingly well worded, but I'm assuming that "these workers" from the previous paragraph are the "digital escorts" which were described as:
> U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage
> U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage
I'm guessing a pair of eyes over your shoulder (or virtually watching a session) as you do work near or with sensitive data or systems.
It's more involved than that - the US national is the person who has control of the keyboard, the non US national views the screen share and instructs them what to do.
> “If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” Matthew Erickson, a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system
It sounds like you may have additional context or perspective, which makes me curious about the scope of "instructs." For example, I can imagine that the deployment sources of the public and Government clouds infrastructure are different, such that a bug fix on the shared base may need to be merged between these two branches. If a foreign national made the fix for the public version and then provided the expertise of resolving merge conflicts when applying it to the Government version, it presents an opportunity for subtle abuse unless the change is either further audited by the keyboard operator or another engineer before the merge result lands or is deployed.
It sounds like you may have additional context or perspective, which makes me curious about the scope of "instructs." For example, I can imagine that the deployment sources of the public and Government clouds infrastructure are different, such that a bug fix on the shared base may need to be merged between these two branches. If a foreign national made the fix for the public version and then provided the expertise of resolving merge conflicts when applying it to the Government version, it presents an opportunity for subtle abuse unless the change is either further audited by the keyboard operator or another engineer before the merge result lands or is deployed.
Generally it's used for fixing corrupt deployments / debugging / deploying.
As far at I'm aware, there isn't a separate code base.
In general, you can't share scripts / executables via this mechanism - that's done via code review and deployment.
You could get an operator to run a script in a malicious way, but it'd need pre-written to include the malicious behaviour.
As far at I'm aware, there isn't a separate code base.
In general, you can't share scripts / executables via this mechanism - that's done via code review and deployment.
You could get an operator to run a script in a malicious way, but it'd need pre-written to include the malicious behaviour.
That's not really what the article supposes unless I missed something, or do you have a different source? Hilarious if true.
Edit: yes it does, I just didn't read it all the way.
Edit: yes it does, I just didn't read it all the way.
Maybe it isn't displaying on mobile or something, but there's a grey box in the article that shows step-by-step what happens.
> A Microsoft engineer in China files an online “ticket” to take on the work.
> A U.S.-based escort picks up the ticket.
> The engineer and the escort meet on the Microsoft Teams conferencing platform.
> The engineer sends computer commands to the U.S. escort, presenting an opportunity to insert malicious code.
> The escort, who may not have advanced technical expertise, inputs the commands into the federal cloud system.
> A Microsoft engineer in China files an online “ticket” to take on the work.
> A U.S.-based escort picks up the ticket.
> The engineer and the escort meet on the Microsoft Teams conferencing platform.
> The engineer sends computer commands to the U.S. escort, presenting an opportunity to insert malicious code.
> The escort, who may not have advanced technical expertise, inputs the commands into the federal cloud system.
I didn't read the article all the way through apparently.
Makes sense, but it really does seems like a silly way to work around the security policies.
It's cost saving exercise. Microsoft does not have to hired skilled US Citizen workers who command higher salary and can use cheaper labor in both US citizen and overseas worker.
Basically, stockholders get another yacht, national security gets screwed.
Basically, stockholders get another yacht, national security gets screwed.
Chinese engineers call the US escorts on Teams and tell them what to copy & paste into US government cloud terminals. The Chinese don't see the screen or touch the keyboard attached to the government cloud so they "don't" break the letter of the law.
i don't really understand why folks are downplaying this in the comments:
some engineers who write the code for production US systems that contain controlled unclassified information live in china. the US government was unaware that this was happening because MSFT hid it from them. as a result, govt stakeholders are/were unable to assess the risk.
all MSFT ATO's should be revoked.
some of the comments point out that foreign workers will help maintain facilities overseas, but govt stakeholders are aware of this, assess the risk, and implement risk controls.
but shady M$FT hid this from govt, and that amplifies the problem!
disclaimer: am google
some engineers who write the code for production US systems that contain controlled unclassified information live in china. the US government was unaware that this was happening because MSFT hid it from them. as a result, govt stakeholders are/were unable to assess the risk.
all MSFT ATO's should be revoked.
some of the comments point out that foreign workers will help maintain facilities overseas, but govt stakeholders are aware of this, assess the risk, and implement risk controls.
but shady M$FT hid this from govt, and that amplifies the problem!
disclaimer: am google
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well, I guess this probably explains the OPM breach. I wondered how they got hold of even the basic details needed for that, seems Microsoft was sending them targets by email voluntarily.
Worst part is I'm not really surprised.
Worst part is I'm not really surprised.
> Pentagon bans foreign citizens from accessing highly sensitive data, but Microsoft bypasses this by using engineers in China ...
The fun of using Cloud type systems. I expect AWS, Google and maybe IBM Cloud has the same issue. Save $ now, pay lots more later.
The fun of using Cloud type systems. I expect AWS, Google and maybe IBM Cloud has the same issue. Save $ now, pay lots more later.
So much bringing manufacturing to America but I see little regarding developing software solely in America.
Not sure if this is a debate the current administration has for the future or even if they are aware of it.
Not trying to give my opinion or deciding whether one thing is better or worse. Just genuine curiosity.
Not sure if this is a debate the current administration has for the future or even if they are aware of it.
Not trying to give my opinion or deciding whether one thing is better or worse. Just genuine curiosity.
Because "manufacturing in America" is to continue having a peasant class to buy goods.
Outsourcing software development is 100% intended to surpress the peasants managing to go up higher on the ladder. Many companies doing "AI layoffs" are in fact just outsourcing to the usual countries overseas even more.
Outsourcing software development is 100% intended to surpress the peasants managing to go up higher on the ladder. Many companies doing "AI layoffs" are in fact just outsourcing to the usual countries overseas even more.
"AI layoffs" is mostly just media spin + a useful excuse by execs when the company isn't performing well. Looking through the list few mention anything about laying off engineers because of AI
https://www.forbes.com/sites/martineparis/2025/07/09/sweepin...
> IBM CEO Says AI Has Replaced Hundreds of Workers but Created New Programming, Sales Jobs
(laying off mostly administrative/HR people)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-ceo-says-ai-has-replaced-hu...
> Intel plans to lay off up to a fifth of its factory workers, an enormous cutback that will have a profound effect on one of the chipmaker’s core businesses.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2025/06/intel-will...
Microsoft laid off mostly gaming from failed acquisitions + sales/marketing (one of which I know personally)
> IBM CEO Says AI Has Replaced Hundreds of Workers but Created New Programming, Sales Jobs
(laying off mostly administrative/HR people)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-ceo-says-ai-has-replaced-hu...
> Intel plans to lay off up to a fifth of its factory workers, an enormous cutback that will have a profound effect on one of the chipmaker’s core businesses.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2025/06/intel-will...
Microsoft laid off mostly gaming from failed acquisitions + sales/marketing (one of which I know personally)
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IAmBroom(1)
The Microsoft tech debt dumpster fire continues.
I assume it is OK to say this: Microsoft has a “China” cloud and a non-airgapped “US Government” cloud. It is standard practice that engineers making production touches in the clouds have to be “escorted” by vendors who make sure you’re not doing anything malicious. I assume the article is implying that these vendors for the US Gov cloud may be Chinese nationals.
As Jason mentions in another comment, anything actually requiring clearance is serviced by the airgapped clouds and only folks with clearance are able to operate there.
Edit: misread the article but the third paragraph stands. The government is totally aware of where the operator boundary lies and this is still wildly mischaracterized.