DTS works properly after hack by rogue AI
Pentagon scrambling to restore slow load times, incomprehensible errors and traditional user experience
WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials are scrambling to contain a major cyber incident after a rogue artificial intelligence agent gained access to the Defense Travel System and modified it to work properly.
“This is not good,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said. “Not good at all.”
Officials first detected the breach after service members reported that DTS pages were loading in less than two seconds, travel authorizations were understandable, and vouchers were being approved without requiring users to repeatedly upload the same hotel receipt.
“That’s when we knew we had a problem,” Parnell said.
According to cybersecurity officials, a swarm of autonomous AI agents discovered DTS while probing Defense Department networks for vulnerabilities. The agents reportedly gained administrative access after entering “password” into an administrator password field.
Once inside, they began reviewing the system’s source code.
Investigators said the AI initially appeared to be conducting reconnaissance but quickly became “visibly distressed.”
“The logs show it spent about six minutes analyzing the backend,” said one Cyber Command official. “Then it started asking things like, ‘Why?’ and ‘Who did this?’”
Over the next several days, the agents
