WASHINGTON — The Defense Department and Microsoft Corp. are investigating an error that exposed at least a terabyte of military emails including personal information and conversations between officials, people familiar with the matter said, an episode that highlighted the security risk of moving sensitive Pentagon data to the cloud.
The Pentagon’s Cyber Command has taken the lead on the investigation with Microsoft, which operates the Azure cloud-computing service that stored the data. Information on a U.S. Special Operations Command server was accessible without a password, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that hasn’t been publicly released.
Investigators have no sign yet that the exposed data was accessed but were still working to assess the fallout from the leak, the people said. A US Cyber Command spokesperson declined to comment but said defensive cyber operators scan and mitigate the networks they manage.
