An internal Pentagon audit by the inspector general found that the US Department of Defense last year spent around $33 million on 8,000 printers and 1,500 computers from Chinese companies that have been accused of involvement in cyber espionage by national security officials. Moreover, the printers contained serious security flaws that could be exploited by threat actors to breach Pentagon networks.
The audit warns that “if the [department] continues to purchase and use [commercial IT] items without identifying, assessing and mitigating the known vulnerabilities … missions critical to national security could be compromised.”
Read more: The Pentagon Spent Millions on Vulnerable Chinese Tech in 2018, Watchdog Says
