At least a terabyte of military emails was exposed in a leak that the Department of Defense and Microsoft are investigating. There is no evidence that the information was accessed, but the investigators are still assessing the damage from the leak.
Why it matters: The data was stored on Microsoft Azure servers and the leak may have resulted from a configuration error. The information on the US Special Operations command server was accessible without a password.
- Personal information such as conversations between officials and completed security clearance request forms were contained in the emails leaked.
- The leak could affect future Microsoft bids for government cloud contracts and is drawing scrutiny on the Pentagon’s decision to move sensitive information to commercial cloud systems.
