US auditing Chinese involvement in cloud services, defence chief says

According to Washington’s defense chief, the US military has begun a review of Chinese nationals’ involvement in managing sensitive cloud services.

Pete Hegseth, the US’s secretary of defense, announced on Wednesday that he had ordered an audit of Microsoft’s use of Chinese nationals to check whether any security breaches had occurred.

Hegseth stated in a video statement that “the use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments is over.”

We’ve requested a third-party audit of Microsoft’s digital escort program, including the code and the submissions made by Chinese nationals, and have written a formal letter of concern to Microsoft documenting this breach of trust.

“We weren’t aware of anything that was written in the code,” the question remains. Hegseth continued, “We are going to find out.”

Hegseth added that he had also instructed software providers to look into and stop “any Chinese involvement with DOD systems.”

Hegseth’s order comes after a ProPublica investigation in July revealed that Microsoft used contractors from other countries to maintain the Defense Department’s cloud systems in collaboration with US-based “digital escorts” in conjunction with US-based “digital escorts.”

Following the report, Microsoft announced that it would no longer support the military with technicians from China.

Following the publication of the ProPublica report, Hegseth declared that it was “common sense” to exclude Chinese nationals from sensitive systems.