The Air Force SharePoint Privacy Incident: A Critical Warning for the Future of Data Security

Elizabeth Dicus
7 minutes ago
7 min read

Why immediate modernization with infrastructure like MOTAR is essential to protect mission-critical information.

In today's digital defense environment, collaboration is mission-essential. But, when access control is mismanaged, it can quickly become a liability. This reality came into sharp focus with the recent Air Force SharePoint privacy incident, where misconfigured permissions may have exposed sensitive personal and health data. While SharePoint remains widely used across the Department of War (DoW), this case highlights a persistent vulnerability: traditional collaboration platforms often lack the granular, enforceable, and auditable access control needed for high-security, multi-tenant environments. To move forward, the DoW needs more than just patchwork fixes, it needs platforms architectured from the ground up for Zero Trust. That’s where Dynepic’s MOTAR platform shines!

The SharePoint Incident: What Went Wrong

Before we dive into MOTAR, it’s worth summarizing the core challenges that surfaced in the Air Force / SharePoint issue, because that shapes what a “good” solution must address.

From the Air & Space Forces Magazine article:

The Air Force is investigating a privacy exposure in which Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) may have been exposed due to misconfigured SharePoint permissions.
The incident apparently stems from incorrect permission settings — i.e. users or groups had access they shouldn’t have.
In a large organization like the Air Force, properly mapping roles, groups, and fine-grained permissions is a major administrative burden.
The problem is exacerbated by poor documentation or oversight of who has access to which content and why. “Many data owners fail to properly document who has access … and why they have that access.”

The article also notes that, while Microsoft said the particular exploit didn’t affect their cloud‑based SharePoint, permission management remains a challenge for SaaS deployments just as much as on-premises ones.

In other words, the core vulnerabilities here are:

Excessive or incorrect access rights (users/groups with more privileges than needed)
Lack of user credential verification before access
Lack of asset-level permissions based on asset’s data markings
Poor visibility, auditing, and documentation of who has access to what
The need for scalable, manageable, automatable controls in large, distributed, collaborative environments

A robust platform must not only enforce strict access control based on current user credentials, but also make it feasible to manage and audit permissions at scale — especially when external partners, contractors, or cross‑domain collaborators are involved.

How MOTAR Addresses These Challenges

Dynepic’s MOTAR platform brings several architectural features and innovations that map directly to the problems exposed in the SharePoint scenario. Below is how MOTAR counters each of the failure modes and raises the bar overall.

1. Zero-Trust, Asset-Level Access Control

One of the key strengths of MOTAR is that it’s built with Zero Trust identity, credential, and access management (ICAM) baked in, rather than retrofitted.

MOTAR’s patented Zero Trust Access Protocol (ZTAP) ensures that every digital asset — whether it's a 3D model, application, document, immersive lesson, digital twin, or other file — is digitally tagged with data markings (e.g. government distribution statements, CUI dissemination controls, contractor data rights, …). Access to each asset is granted only after evaluating whether the user’s credentials satisfy policy for that level of classification.

The system is “context‑aware, role‑based,” meaning MOTAR goes even further with fine-grain permissions to govern not only who can discover and view an asset but also who can download, use, modify, or share it.

MOTAR contrasts with typical SharePoint usage, where permissions are often granted at the folder/site/document level which doesn’t have zero-trust, credential based access with even further fine grain controls but instead relies on hierarchical folder or document based permissions.

Because MOTAR enforces access right at the asset level (rather than just at container or site level), it reduces the risk that a misconfigured site-level permission will leak data across multiple assets.

Dynepic’s Zero Trust Access Protocol (ZTAP) is patented under U.S. Patent No. 12,204,684 and other pending application(s). This foundational patent specifically addresses the challenge of managing overlapping access domains with legal credentials (e.g. government, contractors, foreign partners, public) in a unified ecosystem.

2. User Friendly “Permissions Wizard” to Mitigate Human Error

A huge challenge in complex organizations is getting the permissions right. Even with the right architecture, if administrators misapply permissions, you get the same exposure. To address this, Dynepic’s has developed and a Permissions Wizard:

The Permissions Wizard provides an intuitive interface for assigning data markings and user-level permissions in a legally compliant way. It helps ensure that assets are properly marked (e.g. classification, distribution statements, contractor data rights) before permissions are assigned.

Because the wizard is integrated into MOTAR, organizations are less likely to incorrectly mark or permission assets by mistake. This reduces the “human error” vector that is often at the root of permission exposures.

In short: the Permissions Wizard is meant to make correct permissioning easier, not just theoretically possible.

3. Unified Identity and Account Binding

Another source of exposure is weak or disconnected identity management. If your user identities aren’t tightly bound to access roles, it becomes easy to misassign rights.

Because MOTAR is identity-driven (users’ credentials and attributes are tied to their roles and permissions), every access request is validated, and the system continuously enforces the correct authority.

Thus, rather than relying on generic or loosely managed accounts, MOTAR can ensure that identities are rigorously tied to roles, credentials, and access policies.

4. Full Auditability, Compliance & Traceability

One of the lessons from the SharePoint exposure is that many organizations fail to document who has which access and why. Without audit trails, detection of exposure is hard.

MOTAR addresses this via:

Digital tagging and metadata: Every asset carries not just content but associated metadata that includes its classification, distribution statements, data rights, and usage policy.

These capabilities make MOTAR more defensible in environments requiring high assurance (e.g. government, defense, regulated industries).

5. Flexible Deployments (Cloud / On-Prem / Air-Gapped)

A big pain point in high-security environments is that you often need to operate disconnected or air-gapped. If your permission controls depend on continuous connectivity, you lose leverage in contested or field settings.

Dynepic has introduced MOTAR Ghost, an on-prem, air-gapped, customizable version of the platform that can be installed in private clouds or completely offline environments, while preserving permissions-based collaboration across departments and partners.

MOTAR supports deployment on-premises, in enterprise environments, or in cloud environments, depending on mission needs.

Even in disconnected or constrained settings, the asset-level permission enforcement remains active, thanks to locally enforced policy engines.

This flexibility is crucial for defense organizations, which often can’t rely on persistent connectivity for secure operations.

6. Streamlined Application Integration & Inheritance of Security Controls

A further challenge in collaborative ecosystems is managing permissions across applications and content in a consistent way.

Because MOTAR is a “platform of platforms,” applications built on or integrated with it can rely on the same identity and permission model rather than re-implementing their own.

The unified API/SDK ecosystem ensures that access control logic, identity enforcement, and governance rules are consistent across all immersive assets and applications.

So you avoid the problem of “shadow apps” or side-channel permission leaks that are common in loosely integrated systems.

Why MOTAR Helps Where SharePoint Fails — and What Remains to Be Vigilant About

Putting it all together, here’s a side-by-side comparison of how MOTAR mitigates the failure modes exposed by the SharePoint case:

Challenge	SharePoint Weakness / Risk	MOTAR Countermeasure
Excessive or misassigned permissions	Admins misconfigure site or folder-level permissions, granting broader access than intended	*Credential based access at the Asset-level with zero-trust enforcement via ZTAP; Permissions Wizard helps reduce human error*
Poor granularity	Permissions often coarse (site, folder), not per document or digital asset	*Fine-grained policies per asset (view, download, modify, share)*
Identity misalignment	Weak or generic accounts not tied to verified credentials	*Strong identity integration + continuous validation of credentials*
Lack of visibility / audit trail	Organizations don’t know exactly who has access, when, or why	*Every access enforced via policy, logged, and traceable*
Disconnected environments / air-gapped use cases	Many SaaS platforms fail when you lose connectivity	*MOTAR Ghost / local deployment keeps permissions enforcement in offline settings*
App / content security mismatch	Apps or content may bypass or re-implement weaker permissions	*Integration with MOTAR APIs ensures XR apps inherit MOTAR security controls*

Nevertheless, it's important to recognize that no system is a silver bullet. Here are a few considerations and caveats:

Configuration discipline is still necessary. Even with the best tools, poor setup or misapplication of policies can lead to exposure. The Permissions Wizard mitigates but does not eliminate this risk.

Policy evolution and change control must be well governed. Over time, access needs change, and policies must adapt. MOTAR’s audit and governance tools help, but policies must remain well managed.

Insider threat / credential compromise: Zero-trust reduces risk, but if a user’s credentials are stolen or abused, the system must integrate with threat detection, anomaly detection, and revocation.

Interoperability with existing enterprise systems (e.g. directories, identity providers, compliance systems) demands smooth integration and alignment with enterprise IAM & SIEM stacks.

Performance and scalability tradeoffs: Fine-grained permission enforcement, logging, and metadata can impose overhead; infrastructure must support it.

Still, in juxtaposition to the SharePoint exposure, MOTAR offers several advances that make it a far more robust option for a mission-critical, highly collaborative, security-sensitive environment.

Conclusion

The SharePoint privacy incident underscores how powerful collaboration systems can become liabilities when access control is mismanaged. What is needed is not just a permissions layer bolted on top of content, but a platform built from the ground up with access control, identity, tagging, and auditing woven into every atomic asset and interaction.

Dynepic’s MOTAR is designed with exactly that in mind. By implementing zero-trust, asset-level controls, a seamless Permissions Wizard for data marking, identity integration, auditability, and flexible deployment (including air-gapped environments), it addresses the core failure modes exposed in the Air Force’s SharePoint case. Moreover, because MOTAR is built to integrate apps, content, and immersive environments under one security umbrella, it helps prevent the “loose ends” that often lead to data leaks.

The DAF CTO noted that the volume of data in SharePoint makes migration challenging. However, delaying transition to a modern system only increases security risks and compounds the problem over time. Our recommendation is to begin implementation immediately — start storing new data on the modern system while migrating legacy content as needed.

Additionally, AI agents can streamline the process for migration by scanning existing documents, identifying their required protections, and automatically applying proper digital data markings as they are added to systems like MOTAR. This ensures compliance with Zero Trust principles from day one and enables secure, efficient use of all data moving forward.