(Newser) – The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has sternly warned employees and contractors to quit using its computers to look at Internet porn. There have been multiple instances of workers viewing or transmitting porn, the agency's director writes in a memo obtained by Bloomberg. "These actions are not only unprofessional," he writes, but they also "reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and Department of Defense regulations, consume network resources, and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code."

An agency spokesman says the warning is a response to "a few people downloading material from some websites that were known to have had virus and malware issues." A government cybersecurity expert says many porn sites are infected, and foreign intelligence agencies, including Russia's, have been known to use them to harvest information from government computers. The porn-surfing missile staff has been warned that it is putting its security clearances—and jobs—in jeopardy. (Read more Pentagon stories.)

