SPY GAMES

Pentagon Pete Accused of Exposing Troops to Enemy Spies

A scathing report has laid bare how the Pentagon has put troops at risk.

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Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense is putting troops at risk of foreign spies because of security weaknesses in the Pentagon’s $2.67 billion cellphone contracts.

A damning new watchdog report exposed ongoing failings in the Pentagon’s protection of sensitive communications and location information in the military’s sprawling Spiral 4 wireless contract, despite repeated warnings about overseas espionage, as revealed by PunchUp, the Daily Beast’s sister Substack.

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The armed forces had more than 568,000 wireless lines in January, making the security of its communications a potentially enormous national security concern.

The Pentagon failed to check whether phone companies were adequately protecting sensitive data that could reveal troops’ locations and who they were in contact with, the investigators found. Officials also failed to properly scrutinize the companies’ security checks before renewing their contracts.

In a chilling warning, the watchdog said hackers could “map entire communication networks within the DoW (Department of Defense), pinpoint sensitive locations like safe houses or command posts, and expose operational vulnerabilities, significantly compromising national security.”

Investigators also found that Pentagon officials “were aware that malicious actors could exploit known vulnerabilities to intercept and read SMS messages” sent to and from military phones. Yet the department “had not issued policy for protecting text messages.”

This latest investigation followed a December 2024 warning from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Eric Schmitt. The pair demanded action after Chinese state-linked hackers infiltrated major U.S. phone networks, gaining access to Americans’ call records and private conversations.

Their letter identified AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile as the firms reported to be targeted by Chinese hackers.

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After the espionage operation, known as Salt Typhoon, was uncovered, the Pentagon updated its contracts last May to require independent checks of the phone companies’ security systems, including tests to identify weaknesses hackers could exploit.

But the watchdog found that officials still lacked a proper process for reviewing those findings before exercising contract options.

In an extraordinary warning, Wyden said he was still deeply “concerned” about the security of communications used by American servicemembers.

“I remain concerned that our servicemembers remain at risk from the military’s insecure communications and look forward to seeing what else the Inspector General finds,” Wyden told us.

“I’ll continue to watchdog DOD to make sure they follow through on the Inspector General’s findings and finally secure their communications.”

All three recommendations remained unresolved. The watchdog told the Pentagon to make sure phone companies were doing enough to protect troops from having their locations tracked or their communications intercepted. It sought tougher security checks before contracts were renewed. But Pentagon officials either argued over whose job it was or failed to explain what they would do about the problems.

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Wyden welcomed the progress but said more work needed doing. “I am glad that the Inspector General spurred the DOD to change its contracts with the wireless carriers and receive third-party security assessments,” he told PunchUp. “That is why Senator Schmitt and I pushed the Inspector General to investigate this issue.”

The audit did not establish that foreign intelligence services had compromised the military accounts covered by the contracts.

The latest embarrassment comes after Hegseth was himself caught up in the notorious Signalgate scandal, when he shared sensitive details of imminent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen through a Signal group chat that inadvertently included the editor of The Atlantic.

A separate Pentagon watchdog investigation into Signalgate concluded in December that Hegseth had violated department rules by sending operational information from his personal phone, creating risks to American pilots and their mission. Hegseth insisted the report amounted to “total exoneration,” despite its findings.

A Pentagon spokesperson directed PunchUp to its written response to the watchdog, in which DOD officials accepted that they had a part to play in improving telecommunications security but said Under Secretary for Intelligence and Security Bradley D. Hansell should take charge of checking how well troops’ phone data was protected.

An official insisted the military was “committed to the safety and security of our service members” and said it was continually strengthening its protections against surveillance, including measures to prevent “adversaries” from tracking troops through commercially available location data.

The department did not comment on whether independent security checks had been reviewed before contracts were renewed.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

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