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China's Shocking US Military Hack: A Decade of Secrets
Jul 29, 2025
Chinese hackers breached US nuclear security! How did Microsoft engineers in China gain access? A decade-old legacy system is now under review. 'Literally no one seems to know anything about this.' What happens if nuclear weapons systems are compromised? #ChinaHack #CyberSecurity #NuclearThreat #USDefense #Microsoft #TechNews
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0:00
Last week, Chinese hackers penetrated a
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high level security agency responsible
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for maintaining and designing America's
0:09
nuclear weapons. It's not clear yet if
0:12
they gained access to any classified
0:14
information.
0:16
A new investigation reveals China may
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have breached sensitive United States
0:20
military systems more than a decade ago.
0:23
National security correspondent Caitlyn
0:25
Burke has the details.
0:28
China's potential end to DoD systems
0:30
didn't come in the form of a cyber
0:32
attack or a rogue agent inside the
0:34
government. The source appears to be
0:36
Microsoft employees based in China
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operating under oversight of
0:40
undertrained US-based supervisors.
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These uh Microsoft engineers based in
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mainland China were feeding code to uh
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what were called digital escorts. So
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these were DoD employees with security
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clearances. They're able to take the
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code that was produced by Microsoft
0:56
engineers and then put it directly into
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DoD systems.
1:00
While these Microsoft employees are not
1:02
known Chinese agents, according to a
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ProPublica investigation, many of the
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digital escorts tasked with patching
1:09
their work into DoD systems, report
1:12
being illequipped to understand the code
1:14
they receive. Jack Bernham, a research
1:16
analyst with the Foundation for Defense
1:18
of Democracies, sees this arrangement
1:20
creating two main security concerns. So
1:23
there's both a concern about
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vulnerabilities in terms of Chinese
1:27
engineers employed by Microsoft having
1:29
an extensive knowledge of the cloud
1:30
computing system. So being able to
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target certain aspects as well as
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potentially introducing vulnerabilities
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that these digital escorts may not have
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known existed because they didn't have
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the technical expertise in order to spot
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them.
1:43
Both Microsoft and the Pentagon were
1:45
reportedly notified over the last decade
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regarding potential security concerns
1:49
given the location of the Microsoft
1:51
engineers. But when ProPublica spoke
1:53
with former and current Pentagon
1:55
officials, many had little to no
1:57
knowledge of the program or how it
1:59
operated. The spokesperson for the
2:01
Defense Information Systems Agency,
2:03
saying, quote, "Literally, no one seems
2:06
to know anything about this, so I don't
2:08
know where to go from here." Microsoft,
2:10
meanwhile, issuing a statement saying,
2:12
"Its personnel and contractors operate
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in a manner quote consistent with US
2:16
government requirements and processes."
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No matter what circumstances led to this
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system flying under the radar for so
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long, Defense Secretary Pete Hgsth says
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it ends now.
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And I want to thank all those Americans
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out there in the media and elsewhere who
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raised this issue to our attention so we
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could address it.
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Effective immediately, Hgsithth says
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China will no longer have any
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involvement in DoD cloud services and
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he's ordered a two-week review of all
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other Pentagon systems. This is
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obviously unacceptable, especially in
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today's digital threat environment. Now,
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this was a legacy system created over a
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decade ago during the Obama
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administration. But we have to ensure
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the digital systems that we use here at
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the Defense Department are ironclad and
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impenetrable. National security experts
3:04
say it's time for a cyber security
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mindset shift across the federal
3:08
government and for a major investment in
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a trusted workforce here at home capable
3:13
of ensuring more critical systems aren't
3:15
left vulnerable. Caitlyn Burke, CBN
3:17
News, Washington.
3:19
No, frankly, there needs to be a total
3:21
ban on either China or uh any of the the
3:25
the enemies of the United States.
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China's been stealing US tech for
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decades and and and it's not a new
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story. What is a new story is that
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somehow or other our department of
3:37
defense was using uh Chinese engineers
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in in order to update the the uh code
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for our our most sensitive data which is
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how our nuclear weapons are designed. Uh
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can you imagine a a warfare scenario
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where the unthinkable is happening and
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nuclear weapons are being exchanged and
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suddenly because of a um ability to hack
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them our weapons aren't aren't usable.
4:06
Well, it it it's just literally
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mind-boggling that we would use
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engineers in China for that task. And
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you say, well, they're Microsoft
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employees. Well, if you're a citizen of
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China, there's a lot of pressure that
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the Chinese government can and will put
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on you to to bend to their will. And and
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if you're in that sensitive position,
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they know it already. So, uh, is it any
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surprise that Chinese engineers would be
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working for their own government in
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order to extract secrets from our
4:43
Department of Defense? What is just
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amazing to me is Microsoft would let
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that happen and the Department of
4:51
Defense would let that happen and it
4:54
would sneak in. Again, it's been going
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on for decades. China stealing it uh
5:00
from the US and and and using it for
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their own systems. Uh and is it any
5:06
surprise that they would do it with our
5:08
defense department?
#Hacking & Cracking
#Military
#Network Security