DMDC

File Sharing Flaw Exposes Unencrypted Records of Over 3 Million People from Pentagon Defense Manpower Data Center

A misconfiguration in a file sharing system allowed unauthorized access to a server belonging to the Defense Manpower Data Center, the central personnel registry of the U.S. Department of Defense. The exposure affected more than 3 million individuals and included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, contact details, gender, race, and military occupational specialties. The data remained unencrypted throughout the incident window that lasted from October 2025 until July 2026. The DMDC discovered the issue on 16 July 2026, applied an immediate fix, and restored the system, yet victim notifications did not begin until 18 September. Affected individuals are being offered one year of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services through the contractor IDX. No evidence of data misuse has been identified and no attribution has been made public.