Sec Hegseth: “Earlier this week, we were alerted to a potential vulnerability in our DoD computer systems, and we’ve been checking into it ever since. It turns out that some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services. This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment.

Now, this was a legacy system created over a decade ago during the Obama administration. But we have to ensure that the digital systems that we use here at the Defense Department are ironclad and impenetrable.

And that’s why today I’m announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services effective immediately.

And at my direction, the Department will also initiate, as fast as we can, a two-week review—or faster—to make sure that what we uncovered isn’t happening anywhere else across the DoD.

We will continue to monitor and counter all threats to our military infrastructure and online networks. And I want to thank all those Americans out there in the media and elsewhere who raised this issue to our attention so we could address it.

And that’s why we’re talking to you today. As the President would say, thank you for your attention to this matter, and God bless our warfighters. I’m going to sign that memo right now, initiating that review.”