'Signalgate' looks like it's going from bad to worse for the Trump Administration, and in the aftermath of The Atlantic's editor-in-chief being added to a private group chat with some senior White House officials including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth, Democrats and Republicans alike have some serious security concerns.
Jeffrey Goldberg was apparently privy to the US' airstrikes against Yemeni Houthi rebels some two hours before the attack happened, but despite Elon Musk downplaying its severity and President Donald Trump saying he wasn't aware of these war plans, the twists to the tale just keep coming.
The messages seemingly revealed that Vance wasn't totally on board with the idea of the strikes, while an account linked to Hesgeth branded America's 'free-loading' European allies as 'pathetic'.
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Hillary Clinton has called out the situation after Trump threatened to jail her over the use of a private email server, and we're sure she'll have a thing or two to say about the latest development.
Even before the group chat leaks, NPR claims the Pentagon had reportedly sent a company-wide email warning against using Signal, even for unclassified information.
A March 18 email obtained by the outlet apparently reads: "A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application. Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations."
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It goes on to claim that Russian hacking groups are specifically targeting Signal and looking for people of interest. When your chat includes the biggest names in the Trump administration, you can only imagine what these bad actors could do if they managed to get into a group like Goldberg did.
The memo adds: "Please note: third-party messaging apps (e.g. Signal) are permitted by policy for unclassified accountability/recall exercises but are NOT approved to process or store nonpublic unclassified information."
NPR has also obtained a memo from 2023 that advises against Signal for any non-public official information.
A Signal spokesman insists that the Pentagon memo isn't about the app's security, but instead, is there to highlight that users should be aware of 'phishing attacks' that could be trying to gain information.
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Jun Harada said: "Once we learned that Signal users were being targeted and how they were being targeted, we introduced additional safeguards and in-app warnings to help protect people from falling victim to phishing attacks. This work was completed months ago."
Still, the timing couldn't be worse for those involved in the leaked group chat. It's also worrying that Goldberg wasn't even acting with bad intentions or trying to gain access to the group chat but reportedly received a connection request from an account identified as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
The leak of information like this is known as 'spillage', and as NPR notes, it can have career-ending consequences. Despite some championing Signal's security, former National Security Advisor John Bolton explained that anyone with the level of clearance that those in the chat had shouldn't be sharing sensitive military information on a forum like Signal: "These are things that are absolutely basic. Yet these are Cabinet-level people in our government, and yet not one of them ever said, 'Why are we on Signal?'"