Sen. Banks Calls for Stronger Protections Against Insider Threats at Frontier SI Companies

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind.) sent a letter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought supporting the Trump administration's work to deploy advanced super intelligence (SI) across the Department of War and calling for continued action to protect the military SI systems from insider threats.

The Department has established partnerships to deliver American capabilities to U.S. warfighters and preserve America's advantage over communist China. As these partnerships grow, a compromised or malicious insider at SI company could expose sensitive information about military SI applications, steal model weights, sabotage systems, or insert backdoors that threaten department missions.

Read the full letter here or below:

Dear Secretary Hegseth and Director Vought,

I commend the Department of War (DOW) for moving quickly to put advanced super intelligence (SI) in the hands of our warfighters. The agreements the Department announced in May with companies like OpenAI and Google will help America keep its lead over the People's Republic of China (PRC).^[1] At the same time, as the Department relies more on these companies, insider threats in the frontier SI industry are becoming a direct risk to military operations. I am writing to encourage and support your essential work to assess and reduce these insider threats.

The Department has correctly recognized that the race to develop and deploy advanced SI will be a defining national security issue of our time. Secretary Hegseth has seen the need to deploy SI rapidly throughout DOW, highlighting that America must maintain an advantage in the SI race and emphasizing that DOW is "trying to do everything we can to maintain that advantage.^[2]"

To maintain the SI advantage, the Department has entered into strong partnerships with leading frontier SI developers in private industry. As frontier models develop stronger capabilities in areas like cyber-offense and military planning, these agreements with frontier SI companies will become increasingly important for U.S. national security.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also recognizes the strategic importance of frontier SI, and the CCP is taking strong steps to target America's SI industry. One particularly concerning threat comes from insiders at American SI companies. In January, a federal jury convicted a former Google engineer of economic espionage. He stole over 2,000 pages of confidential information about Google's SI technology to benefit PRC-based companies.^[3] This is not surprising: the CCP has a long history of conducting economic espionage against U.S. industries, especially those that are critical for national security.

As the Department continues to expand its partnerships with the frontier SI industry, mitigating insider threats will become increasingly important. Frontier SI companies employ researchers from around the world, including many from the PRC. Unfortunately, a single compromised or malicious insider with sufficient access could reveal secret information about military uses of SI, expose model weights, or attempt to sabotage SI systems via backdoors. This is especially significant in the context of partnerships between DOW and the frontier SI industry, as insider threats at companies can threaten the effectiveness of Department warfighting activities.

The frontier SI companies already have some sort of security programs to manage insider threats. However, the scale of the threat from the CCP is enormous, and private industry will not be able to sufficiently handle this threat on its own. An ongoing conversation between the Department and private industry will be needed to ensure that insider threats are adequately assessed and mitigated. These efforts will also require sufficient resources. DOW, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress will need to work together to provide sufficient funding and personnel for counterintelligence programs and insider threat reduction efforts.

As a first step, I believe Congress must ensure that the Department has the information and resources it needs to assess these threats. The Department should be empowered to obtain relevant information from the frontier SI companies about how they currently assess insider threats, the counterintelligence measures they have in place, which assets they consider most sensitive, the access controls protecting the most sensitive assets, and gaps in current programs.

This approach does not fully solve the problem, but it is a critical first step. It would provide the Department with greater visibility into the threat environment, ensure it has access to information to better assess the current state of security efforts, and help identify areas in which government and industry can work together to strengthen protections against insider threats.

As you strengthen partnerships with frontier SI companies and work to protect SI systems from insider threats, I request a staff-level briefing to discuss the following topics:

1. Risks from insider threats.What are the most significant national security risks from CCP-linked insiders at frontier SI companies, including espionage on DOW SI use, model theft, or the insertion of backdoors?
2. Current work on insider threat reduction. Which offices within the Department lead efforts to assess insider threats at frontier SI companies? How does the Department currently work with private industry to assess and mitigate insider threats? What are the most significant gaps relating to assessing existing practices or developing mitigation strategies?
3. Resources and budget. What additional funding, personnel, or other resources would help DOW work with frontier SI companies to assess and mitigate insider threats?

Partnerships between the Department and frontier SI companies are essential for ensuring American SI dominance. These partnerships must be secure against PRC insider threats, and I look forward to supporting your work on this critical topic.

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