A top US military official has stated that the cost of changing tactics and coping with the security breach, post Edward Snowden, could cost the US in billions of dollars. Edward Snowden who exposed government surveillance will have roughly 1.7 million documents affected and that includes top-secret military capabilities, operations and tactics.

The cost of changing those tactics and coping with the security breach could total billions of dollars, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey told the House Armed Services Committee recently. The US Defense Department officials, along with officials from other agencies, are still investigating the documents Snowden took and determining how to blunt the risks they pose to US security, Dempsey said.

“The mitigation task force will need to function for about two years—that’s the magnitude of this challenge,” Dempsey said. “I suspect it could cost billions of dollars to overcome the loss of security that has been imposed on us.”