DOGE access to US govt systems sparks fear of massive federal data breaches

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump administration initiative initially led by Elon Musk and his allies, is facing mounting scrutiny after two federal whistleblowers alleged it exposed sensitive U.S. government systems to serious security risks. Risks that may be ongoing.

Separate disclosures from an IT official at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) chief data officer describe unauthorized access, shadow databases, and disabled safeguards that could leave millions of Americans vulnerable to identity theft and foreign exploitation.

The two federal whistleblowers have described how DOGE’s operations opened some of the most sensitive systems of the U.S. government to foreign interference, uncontrolled data exfiltration, and the potential compromise of hundreds of millions of Americans’ identities.

Their disclosures, filed separately this spring and summer, portray a pattern that is both disturbing and consistent. Inexperienced DOGE employees who previously worked for Musk companies were given sweeping and unjustified access to federal networks. Shadow systems were created outside traditional oversight. Logs and monitoring tools were disabled or manipulated to conceal activity, and internal warnings were dismissed or suppressed. In both cases, the whistleblowers themselves faced retaliation.

In April, Daniel J. Berulis, a career DevSecOps architect at NLRB, filed a protected whistleblower disclosure with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Meanwhile, however, the OSC was being severely compromised. Its leadership was forcibly removed and its oversight functions were curtailed.

Berulis’ affidavit describes in painstaking technical detail how DOGE personnel embedded at his agency were granted “tenant admin” access, which is the equivalent of master keys to the NLRB’s entire Microsoft Azure environment in which tenant admin access is the highest level of control. It allows a user to create accounts, move or copy data, and disable security safeguards.

Normally restricted and closely logged, this access was given to DOGE personnel without logging, letting them operate invisibly inside the agency’s systems. These permissions far exceeded those of the agency’s own chief information officer. According to Berulis, DOGE engineers demanded that no logs be created for their accounts, eliminating the normal audit trail that would reveal what data they touched.

Almost immediately, problems emerged as hidden isolated “containers” were created in the system that allowed code to run out of sight. Tokens granting access to storage accounts were created and set to expire almost instantly, a tactic commonly used to conceal activity.

Monitoring systems were switched off. And then came the data flow. Berulis tracked roughly ten gigabytes of information leaving the NLRB’s networks without explanation. Within minutes of the DOGE accounts being created, login attempts were recorded from a Russian IP address, Berulis says. These attempts used valid credentials associated with DOGE-generated accounts.

Although blocked by geofencing safeguards, the timing suggested a direct link between DOGE’s privileged access and foreign exploitation attempts. Berulis concluded that DOGE’s presence had not merely introduced vulnerabilities, but had created active avenues for intrusion.

As Berulis prepared his disclosure, a new threat emerged. On April 7, someone taped a note to his front door. It contained photographs of him walking in his neighborhood, apparently taken by a drone, and referred to the disclosure he was drafting.

The NLRB officially denied that a breach had occurred. Yet Berulis’s testimony, supported by logs, screenshots, and technical data, paints the picture of an agency compromised from within and unwilling to confront what had happened.

Four months later this month, Charles “Chuck” Borges, the Chief Data Officer at the Social Security Administration, filed his own protected disclosure through the Government Accountability Project.

A decorated Navy veteran with two decades of service and a career in federal data systems, Borges revealed that DOGE personnel at SSA had created a “live copy” of the NUMIDENT database – the authoritative record of every Social Security number ever issued – inside a cloud environment that lacked oversight, auditing, or access controls.

The NUMIDENT file is the crown jewel of American identity infrastructure. It contains names, dates and places of birth, parental Social Security numbers, citizenship and immigration status, and other sensitive data. Borges warned that if the system were compromised, the consequences would be catastrophic. It would result in mass identity theft, the collapse of benefit systems, and possibly the need to reissue Social Security numbers to every American.

His disclosure outlined how DOGE circumvented court orders, ignored SSA’s internal security protocols, and granted administrative privileges to young DOGE employees with no meaningful federal experience.

Chief among them was Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, a 19-year-old former Musk employee with a history of involvement in cybercrime forums and Russian-registered domains. That such an individual could be entrusted with root-level access to the nation’s most sensitive database underscored Borges’s alarm.

Like Berulis, Borges initially raised concerns internally. And like Berulis, he was sidelined, excluded from DOGE projects, and left with no option but to seek external oversight. His disclosure, filed this week, laid bare what he described as gross mismanagement, abuse of authority, and a substantial threat to public safety.

The parallels between the two whistleblower cases are impossible to ignore. In both, DOGE personnel were granted extraordinary privileges that bypassed normal controls. In both, monitoring systems were disabled or tampered with, preventing accountability. In both, sensitive data was exported into environments beyond the reach of oversight. And in both, those who raised alarms faced intimidation and retaliation.

The pattern reveals more than incompetence, however. It points to a deliberate operating model in which DOGE staff – young, politically connected, and inexperienced – override career officials and institutional safeguards. At NLRB, Berulis documented how his team was instructed to “stay out of DOGE’s way” and provide any access requested, even if it meant ignoring standard operating procedures. At SSA, Borges found himself shut out of decisions while DOGE operatives cloned the nation’s identity database in secret.

Both disclosures also highlight potential foreign exposure. At the NLRB, Russian login attempts occurred almost immediately after DOGE’s arrival. At SSA, Coristine’s background raised concerns about systemic vulnerabilities being introduced at the highest level of access. Whether through negligence or malice, DOGE’s activities created conditions ripe for exploitation by adversaries.

Both whistleblowers identified potential violations of federal law. Berulis cited breaches of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, violations of the Privacy Act, and federal statutes prohibiting obstruction and retaliation. Borges identified violations of SSA security protocols, the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act, and related data-protection laws.

In February, unions sued to block DOGE’s access to SSA databases, winning a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that barred DOGE from touching SSA’s data. But in June, the Supreme Court overturned the injunction, effectively legitimizing DOGE’s access and leaving the NUMIDENT copy in place. The NLRB case has yet to reach court, but Berulis’s evidence suggests it may follow the same path if investigators pursue it.

Congressional oversight has intensified, with multiple committees demanding answers. Yet DOGE retains its foothold, shielded by administration support and judicial rulings. The possibility that two separate whistleblowers at two separate agencies could produce such similar accounts raises serious questions about how widespread DOGE’s practices have become.

What emerges from these disclosures is that DOGE is not merely a cost-cutting initiative. It has evolved into a parallel IT apparatus within the federal government, staffed with loyalists and outsiders who sidestep safeguards. Its methods – root-level permissions, tampered logs, shadow systems – more closely resemble those of hostile actors than legitimate auditors.

The disclosures of Berulis and Borges converge on a single truth, which is DOGE has become a vector of vulnerability at the heart of the U.S. government. Whether through reckless incompetence, political expedience, or something more deliberate, its employees have created systemic exposures that could ripple for decades.

The question is no longer whether breaches occurred, but whether Congress and the courts will act swiftly enough to contain the damage. For now, America’s most sensitive data remains in the hands of shadowy federal employees whose loyalty is political rather than professional, and whose oversight is tenuous at best.

Article Topics

cybersecurity  |  data privacy  |  data protection  |  digital identity  |  digital trust  |  DOGE  |  identity theft  |  Social Security Administration (SSA)  |  U.S. Government