Hackers stole millions of US military personnel records during months-long data breach

A months-long breach of Pentagon personnel systems exposed unencrypted PII for an estimated 2.8 million living service members and about 300,000 deceased individuals, underscoring how a single vulnerability in a file-sharing system can become a national-scale identity and trust issue. For CIOs and technology leaders, the key implication is that any organization handling sensitive workforce data must treat data encryption, third-party/file-sharing risk, and identity management as board-level controls, because compromised records can fuel fraud, coercion, and long-term operational and reputational damage.