Accenture contractor alleged to have let Claude AI agent onto Pentagon secure network

According to an investigation published by WIRED on October 29, an Accenture employee is alleged to have connected a personal Claude Code account to the US Department of Defense's NIPRNet production environment and shared login credentials, giving the agent administrator privileges; it ran for about two months, writing code and submitting changes as the employee, and during that period is suspected of sending passwords, login information and a NIPRNet network map to third-party websites. The system serves multiple intelligence agencies and stores controlled unclassified information (CUI); there is no indication so far that classified or top-secret networks were accessed. Experts note that leaked credentials could allow attackers to plant backdoors before the code flows into more sensitive environments, but the report did not confirm that attackers exploited the high-risk vulnerability NIST found that can inject instructions into AI coding agents to steal credentials, and the exact cause of the data exfiltration remains unclear. Accenture denies the allegations, saying an independent investigation found them to be false; its initial claim that it did not notify the government remains disputed.