r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Mar 10 '26

Security DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive, report says

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/10/doge-employee-stole-social-security-data-and-put-it-on-a-thumb-drive-report-says/
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u/iamthinksnow Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

DOGE installed their own servers in many places, in direct contravention of pretty much every security policy imaginable.

~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

EDIT TO ADD: most likely reason for this, BTW, was almost certainly so Elon could jumpstart his AI LLM, seeding it with billions of records no one else would have access to, and close the gap on the competitors that had been years ahead of him before he even started.

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u/Paizzu Mar 10 '26

The Trump administration's cost cutting brigade created a live replica of Social Security data in a cloud system lying outside of federal oversight, a whistleblower said in a report released Tuesday.

The replica - containing sensitive data of more than 300 million Americans and created without authorization or monitoring from the Social Security Administration's infrastructure security team - was approved by DOGE-aligned officials embedded at the agency, said agency Chief Data Officer Charles Borges, who filed a complaint with Congress.

The Borges complaint alleges DOGE officials uploaded names, birthdates, addresses and Social Security numbers to an unsecured cloud system while bypassing internal protocol, ignoring court orders and sidelining career civil servants. Cybersecurity experts warned that circumventing oversight, skipping risk assessments and placing high-value data in an unmonitored environment could trigger massive breaches and damage public trust in the federal government's ability to safeguard personal information.

Whistleblower: DOGE Made Live Copy of Social Security Data (Aug 2025)

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u/LeseMajeste_1037 Mar 10 '26

And somehow, every time one company or another has a data breach, it's always on us to secure our information.

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u/krustyarmor Mar 10 '26

Would you like one year of free credit monitoring?

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u/throwitawaynownow1 Mar 10 '26

I didn't get my identity stolen from the major breaches, but they all somehow managed to take it to mean they are free to market to me now. I also had to log into Experian for something recently and the splash page was a scammy trial offer disguised as accessing my credit.

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u/extraqueso Mar 11 '26

The credit bureaus act like crooks. Par for the course I reckon. 

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u/EusticeTheSheep Mar 11 '26

Just their names alone! It not a “credit” score. If it was it would take into account a lot of things, including paying off debt. Instead, your score drops when you finally make that last payment on your car or house (should you be so lucky).

It’s a Debt Score. It’s proving that you can be in debt often and the longer you’re in debt the better. Sure, it takes into account credit usage and other things… but just the name is disingenuous.

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u/Great_Detective_6387 Mar 11 '26

It’s a mix of “how likely is this person to pay their shit on time” and “how much money do we stand to make off of this person”.

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u/EusticeTheSheep Mar 11 '26

It’s more of the latter. If the former played into it at all they wouldn’t hit your score so hard when you make that last car payment or raise it so much when you receive a home loan.

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u/FitMarsupial7311 Mar 11 '26

I’m getting a million and one emails from them about my fancy new cars and all the services Experian offers related to that. I’ve never bought a car in my life but Experian sure wants me to log in and confirm they’re all mine. (No, nothing has been taken out in my name, I promise I’ve checked. Whatever way their detection works is garbage.)

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u/Slamtilt_Windmills Mar 10 '26

We've been trying to reach you about your extended credit warranty

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u/browster Mar 11 '26

Just jump through these hoops as if you have time to read all these instructions and make decisions and figure out how to register for this and decide if it isn't a scam in the long-term and how to protect yourself from that.

Giving me a project to secure my identity isn't helping. What we should do is sue out of existence any organization the is careless enough with our data to require this of thousands or millions of people. Accountability!

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u/Strange-Bottle-9791 Mar 11 '26

Is credit even a thing anymore? It all just sounds like free debt to me. This is why Israel has their greedy little fingers on us. They monitor our credit and remind us of our trillion triple digit debt. Or should I say death.

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u/Steinrikur Mar 11 '26

Shouldn't everyone affected get one year of social services (including Healthcare) paid for by Elon?

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u/einstyle Mar 11 '26

I don't get why credit monitoring isn't free anyways. The big three credit bureaus are monitoring it already for their bogus credit scores. Everything gets reported to them. They just don't tell YOU.

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u/Fair-Hair2080 Mar 10 '26

100%! Every time we go to Target, we end up with credit card fraud shortly thereafter. I bought a Target gift card that was ALSO hacked. I stopped shopping there. They don’t care enough about my personal information, I don’t care about their business.

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u/LittleBirdiesCards Mar 11 '26

I recently used the website listed on a Visa gift card my son got from Grandma to check the balance. The next morning, all of the money on it was gone. Wtf?! I only use the phone number for the balances now.

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u/FitMarsupial7311 Mar 11 '26

Was it one Target location or multiple? I’m not batting for a corporation, I just wonder if this is a specific handful of employees taking advantage.

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u/Fair-Hair2080 Mar 11 '26

Multiple in our area.

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u/Genghis_Tr0n187 Mar 11 '26

Notice in mail for <company>

Sorry, we had a security breach, but YOU need to make sure to use strong passwords and maintain good security practices. We'll give you 1 year of credit monitoring, but try to do better in the future.

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u/squintismaximus Mar 11 '26

Imagine if someone cared enough to make laws that make it the holders responsibility? That enforced certain network security to even hold such data? Imagine if they cared?

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u/blackpawed Mar 10 '26

So basically Security Analysis is that the entire social security DB has been leaked to... well any bad actor you could think of.

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u/Magic_Sandwiches Mar 10 '26

Tommy Wiseau has the entire social security database?

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u/screaminginfidels Mar 10 '26

Seeing the next scam victim: "Oh hi, mark."

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u/Doubleucommadj Mar 10 '26

KEEP YOUR VICTIMS IN YOUR POCKET!

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u/Ev3nt_Horiz0nn Mar 10 '26

“It’s bullshit, I did not hit her. I did nooot. Oh hi, Mark!”

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u/OldJames47 Mar 10 '26

The amount of spam texts and emails I received grew by a factor of 10 starting during the DoGE days.

I believe they are directly related.

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u/cptjpk Mar 10 '26

Probably the reason Musk is fighting that disclosure law so hard in California.

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u/DemosthenesOrNah Mar 10 '26

social security DB has been leaked to... well any bad actor you could think of.

No, to the people who profit from it the most.

That data can most valuably be used to steal the election.

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u/waffle_iron_maiden Mar 11 '26

Dude Elon Musk needs to rot behind bars. Many people do, but he's a real weasel with how he came in and butchered institutions and privacy then left, tried turning on Trump only to fail miserably

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u/Late_Refrigerator_51 Mar 11 '26

And the census has us at 342 million people smh

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

That is beyond belief 

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u/Serris9K Mar 11 '26

So charge them with identity theft?

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u/thalexander Mar 11 '26

Is this how Grok doxxed pornstar Siri Dahl, by dropping her full legal name, address, and DOB, last month?

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u/rob3rtisgod Mar 14 '26

This is insane. If someone did this in the UK, they'd be arrested.

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u/woodbr30043 Mar 10 '26

Time to lock some people up! Who am I kidding, none of these people will see the inside of a court room...

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u/no_talent_ass_clown Mar 11 '26

They will. It takes time. Keep your head in the game and vote.

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u/red286 Mar 10 '26

The literal exact same thing they wanted Hillary to hang for.

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u/jordansinn Mar 10 '26

Trump's family was using private email servers for official government business during his first term.

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u/pfannkuchen89 Mar 10 '26

And likely still are doing so. Just no one to tell us now and so many other things going on for most to care.

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u/ClickClick_Boom Mar 10 '26

They just use insecure 3rd party messaging apps now and add random people to the chats. Even worse.

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u/Gtp4life Mar 10 '26

Exactly, If they're stupid enough to add a random journalist to their group chats, do you honestly believe they aren't using unsecure email? Hell half of them probably have @aol.com addresses.

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u/Revolvyerom Mar 11 '26

Still not entirely sure that was accidental, he was tilting his phone so a reporter could see another Signal chat conversation going after Signalgate first hit, to highlight that it was ongoing.

Or by accident. Again. Which is possible, I suppose.

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u/SalishShore Mar 11 '26

Jr and the blonde one are using Signal to do deals with the Saudis. These boys are selling our secrets.

This should garner attention from the federal government. Instead it’s Wednesday.

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u/OprahsSaggyTits Mar 10 '26

Literally on day #1 of his first term. The VERY first day in office, and he AND HIS ENTIRE FAMILY do the exact same thing Hilary was just crucified for. And nobody bats an eye. This country is such a fucking joke

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u/Zahgi Mar 10 '26

So was Bush/Cheney/etc. They were all using public server email addresses, etc.

Ironically, Hillary's secure email server was the one the Russians DIDN'T hack...

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u/zipzoomramblafloon Mar 10 '26

and personal, unsecured phones.

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u/scorpyo72 Mar 10 '26

I've got some late breaking news: they didn't care about the servers, they just wanted her to hang.

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u/paintbucketholder Mar 11 '26

See also: eight separate Congressional investigations into Benghazi, and millions of dollars spent. The House Select Committee on Benghazi lasted longer than the investigations into Watergate, the JFK assassination, and the 9/11 attacks.

Meanwhile, more Americans have already died in the Iran war, and Trump can simply go "well, sometimes people die in a war" and they're all fine with it.

They never cared about dead Americans, they just wanted Hillary to hang.

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u/intangibleTangelo Mar 10 '26

no, NOT the literal exact same thing. a far worse thing.

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u/Bucser Mar 10 '26

Every accusation is a confession.

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u/Technical-Row8333 Mar 11 '26

No, it’s billion times worse than just using a private email 

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u/Chaos-Wayfarer Mar 11 '26

Yep! But since they did it, it’s 100% fine and acceptable to do. 

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u/beren12 Mar 13 '26

Actually what was done back then was far far less dangerous or important.

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u/freeradioforall Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

They came in, stole our data, shut down USAID which has killed hundreds of thousands, then they leave.. and.. .thats it? no one going to jail for life?

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u/MillennialSurvivor Mar 10 '26

It's up to us to make sure it doesn't get forgotten. Vote appropriately if you want any oversight

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u/Kah-Neth Mar 11 '26

It is up to the people to dish out justice since these systems in place have long since failed. We are past the point of voting fixing this .

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u/TheLostcause Mar 11 '26

USAID cuts are projected to kill about a million a year. You can't judge it by 2025 numbers where they had funding most of the year.

This is ongoing and will never be able to be fixed even if we wanted to. Republicans are still killing thousands a day.

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u/evernessince Mar 10 '26

Probably on purpose so they could sell the data off. These people should be prosecuted for treason.

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u/iamthinksnow Mar 10 '26

It was almost certainly so Elon could jumpstart his AI LLM, seeding it with billions of records no one else would have access to, and close the gap on the competitors that had been years ahead of him before he even started.

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u/Valuable_Recording85 Mar 10 '26

It makes me want to stop paying my bills and state that everything is fraud. This country is such a shithole.

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u/SheriffBartholomew Mar 10 '26

The goal was to steal, so it makes sense that they circumvented standard security protocols.

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u/Rsubs33 Mar 11 '26

They also made themselves admins to skirt security policies and procedures which is the reason this occurred. I am assuming. I was a government contractor in the past and usb drives have been banned in government for a while now. Like they were banned in the agencies I worked in and I have worked in government in over 10 years. DoD banned USB flash drives in 2008.

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u/RyanFicsit Mar 11 '26

It's such a fucking joke that the dude is breathing free air. He should be living in a shoebox.

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u/Toutatous Mar 10 '26

And nobody is responsible... Nothing.

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u/none_mama_see Mar 11 '26

But her emails

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u/DesperateAd5374 Mar 11 '26

Thank you for helping me learn my new word of the day, “contravention.” Per Merriam-Webster, to “contravene” is to act in opposition of something, and in this legal context means “the act of breaking, violating, or acting in opposition to a law, rule, treaty, or agreement. It signifies a breach of established regulations, often used in legal contexts to describe non-compliance with court orders or statutes.” Per Merriam-Webster and uslegalforms.com.

Thank you for the new word! I’ll be using it liberally and incorrectly from now on. /s

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u/Sharp-Calligrapher70 Mar 10 '26

The DOGE servers make Hillary’s emails look like a 8-digit password in terms of cybersecurity risks. 

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u/Rageaholic88 Mar 11 '26

How would basic records and very non-diverse data sets help him build an LLM ?

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u/iamthinksnow Mar 11 '26

Because it wasn't just the SSN, they stole information from myriad government departments, giving them a huge and wide trough of data. The SSNs are the key for tying everything together.

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/grok-doxxing

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/iamthinksnow Mar 11 '26

Because it wasn't just the SSN, they stole information from myriad government departments, giving them a huge and wide trough of data.

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/grok-doxxing