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The story
The Pentagon’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), which manages U.S. Department of Defense personnel data, suffered unauthorized access, and it has come to light that the personal information of over 3 million active-duty and retired service members was sitting there readable in unencrypted plain text. Just before this, the FBI had suffered a similar cyberattack that leaked its agents’ information, and the string of breaches hitting government agencies has sent shockwaves through the public. On 5channel threads, reactions ranged from disbelief that even the Department of Defense couldn’t secure its systems, to calls for AI regulation on the grounds that its spread is fueling these attacks, to arguments for an “analog comeback” — physically disconnecting networks altogether.
It has come to light that the servers of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) were accessed without authorization, and that the personal information of more than 3 million people — including current and former military personnel — had been viewed by unknown parties. In the U.S., the FBI had only just reported that it too had suffered a cyberattack that leaked its agents’ personal information. With U.S. government agencies — which are supposed to have ironclad security — hit one after another, those involved are reportedly shocked.
See source for details, 2026/10/9
Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If CIA data leaks, agents are gonna get whacked.
Feel bad for any DEA agents undercover in Mexico.
Weren't they supposed to be using AI to plug the holes?
Analog is king.
But humans are the ones pulling the strings, no?
Just use an EMP, no?
Like the Carrington Event? (the 1859 solar storm that fried telegraph systems worldwide)
China had a massive leak before, didn't they.
Iran and North Korea, maybe?
Lol, China's had leaks on a whole different scale.
https://www.cnn.co.jp/tech/35246217.html
> A massive trove of data, including top-secret defense-related information
> The leaked classified information is said to exceed 10 petabytes
> Believed to have been stolen from the National Supercomputing Center Tianjin (NSCC) in Tianjin. NSCC's infrastructure was used by over 6,000 clients across China, including advanced scientific research institutions and defense agencies.
> Some of the stolen information was posted online as samples.
> Multiple experts CNN spoke with said their initial assessment was that the leaked information appeared genuine.
This is all because they let AI spread everywhere.
If this keeps getting ignored, incidents like this are just going to keep multiplying forever.
Digital money getting siphoned off without permission, companies unable to even run normal business because they're stuck dealing with personal-data-leak fallout…
If AI keeps being left unchecked, the damage is just going to keep growing worldwide — governments, companies, individuals, all of it.
The international community needs to work together and ban AI, immediately.
The humans abusing it are the problem. Penalties need to be way harsher.
Makes you wonder if the nuclear football the US president carries around could get hacked.
If they built it themselves, wouldn't they know how to defend against it?
Well, even if you personally go analog, the bank itself is all data, so your balance hits zero anyway.
Storing stuff in plain text would get even a regular company roasted.
Too late to regulate now. We already gave criminal groups room to evolve with it.
Just keep an amount in the bank you wouldn't mind losing entirely. Store the rest of your assets offline, spread across different places. Need to put up defenses before AI gets you — if a brokerage gets hit, your NISA (Japan's tax-free investment account) could vanish just like that.
Not like analog cash is guaranteed to hold value if banks and stocks are already wrecked, though? Gold, maybe — that'd hold up.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
What leaked this time is said to be personnel data rather than classified defense information, but the fact that it was stored in plain text has drawn criticism of the Department of Defense’s basic security practices. Combined with the FBI breach just before it, the ongoing wave of attacks on U.S. government agencies is hard to ignore. Within the thread, opinions split between those arguing that “the spread of AI itself is driving more attacks” and calling for regulation, and those countering that “it’s humans who abuse it in the end,” absolving AI of blame. The thread also brought up the past case where over 10 petabytes of data were reportedly stolen from China’s National Supercomputing Center Tianjin (NSCC), suggesting that this kind of attack is becoming the norm worldwide. That said, the specific methods and entry points of the attack had not been officially confirmed as of this writing, so some of the speculation in the thread should be taken with a grain of salt.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Breaking News+) thread “[Breaking] U.S. Department of Defense Pentagon Hit by Cyberattack, Personal Data of 3 Million Allegedly Leaked in Plain Text.”
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