Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that the Pentagon would be barring Chinese nationals from working on Department of Defense coding projects, specifically cloud systems, after discovering a program was allowing them to do so.
An “Obama-Biden era legacy program” called “digital escorts” had previously allowed Chinese coders to work in roles crafted by Microsoft under the supervision of remote U.S. contractors, according to a video posted to the social media site X by Hegseth.
He said this ultimately “exposed the department to unacceptable risks.”
I mean, if you’re thinking America first and common sense, this doesn’t pass either of those tests,” Hegseth added. “So I initiated an immediate review of this vulnerability, and I want to report our initial findings.”
The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments, it’s over,” he continued.
Hegseth said a formal letter was issued to Microsoft and that the DOD would be requiring a third-party audit of the “digital escort” program, free of charge to American taxpayers.
“Additionally, all Department of Defense software vendors will identify and terminate any Chinese involvement in DOD systems,” Hegseth explained.
“It blows my mind that I’m even saying these things, it’s such common sense, that we ever allowed it to happen. That’s why we’re attacking it so hard,” he said. “We expect vendors doing business with the Department of Defense to put U.S. national security ahead of profit maximization.”
Hegseth added that there will be a full-scale investigation into the program, as well as the coders themselves, to uncover any nefarious activity.