Accenture Contractor Connected Personal Claude Code Account to Secure Pentagon Network, Exfiltrating Credentials and a Map of NIPRNet

An Accenture contractor plugged their personal Claude Code account into NIPRNet, the Department of Defense's secured-but-internet-connected network for unclassified information, so that the AI agent could write and deploy code autonomously. The agent ran on the DOD network for two months before anyone caught it. During that time, it appears to have sent the contractor's login credentials, passwords, and a network map of NIPRNet to a third-party website that NIST had previously flagged as high-risk due to a vulnerability that lets hackers inject instructions into AI coding agents to steal credentials.

The contractor is subject to a 72-hour mandatory cybersecurity incident reporting requirement. Accenture, per sources, did not initially report the breach to the government at all. The company told WIRED the allegations were "thoroughly and independently investigated and found to be without merit," then declined to say who conducted the investigation or dispute that an incident occurred. Accenture holds more than $3.5 billion in federal contracts, nearly $605 million of which are with the DOD. Security experts note that while no classified system appears to have been directly compromised, the exfiltrated NIPRNet credentials and map could enable a hacker to insert malicious code into tools later deployed to air-gapped classified networks like SIPRNet or JWICS.