Two Marines Sue Pentagon Over Breach of 3 Million Military Records

Two Marines sued the US Defense Department in federal court in Washington on Monday, accusing it of failing to protect the personal records of more than three million current and former military members.

The proposed class action, brought by active-duty Marine Tristyn Edwards and Marine veteran Morgan Stampfli, centers on a breach at the Defense Manpower Data Center. The center is the Pentagon office that maintains personnel records for the armed services, covering troops, retirees, dependents and civilian employees.

According to the complaint, intruders used a flaw in a file-sharing system run by the center to reach personal data that was stored without encryption. Bloomberg Law reported that the intrusion spanned nearly nine months. The exposed records held Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other identifying details, and depending on the person could also include contact information, race and military job specialty.

What the lawsuit claims

The complaint says the Pentagon showed "flagrant disregard for the privacy interests of servicemembers and other military-adjacent individuals." Federal officials have put the number of people affected at about 2.76 million living individuals and 294,000 who are deceased, a total of roughly 3.05 million. Edwards and Stampfli want to represent that whole group as a class. They are seeking damages of more than $5 million.

The department found the vulnerability in July 2026 and patched it, then disclosed the breach publicly in September. The lawsuit argues that the damage was done by then. A Social Security number cannot be reissued like a password, and troops whose numbers circulate face years of fraud risk.

What happens next

The case is Tristyn Edwards et al v. US Department of War, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia as No. 1:26-cv-03667. A judge has not yet certified the class, and the allegations have not been proven in court. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and no lawyers have yet appeared for the department.

Federal breach cases of this size often end in settlements. In 2022, the US Office of Personnel Management agreed to pay $63 million to resolve a class action brought on behalf of millions of federal employees after its own breach. The Marines' lawyers, Jason Rathod and Nicholas Migliaccio of Migliaccio & Rathod, will have to persuade the court that one case can fairly cover more than three million people whose data sat in the same system.