Donald Trump's most important security advisers used Signal to discuss an imminent military strike. Now, reporting by DER SPIEGEL has found that the contact data of some of those officials, including mobile phone numbers, is freely accessible on the internet.

Summary:

Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials.

To do so, the reporters used commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that has been published on the web. Those affected by the leaks include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.

As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 days ago

    It’s not just conceivable, it’s almost guaranteed that non-US powers were listening in.

    I don’t have time to watch a 30+ minute video, but that statement is valid. I’ve posted about this a couple times in the last two days. The Pentagon put out warnings about Signal use more than a year ago. Google put out a strong warning back in February.

    The most novel and widely used technique underpinning Russian-aligned attempts to compromise Signal accounts is the abuse of the app’s legitimate “linked devices” feature that enables Signal to be used on multiple devices concurrently. Because linking an additional device typically requires scanning a quick-response (QR) code, threat actors have resorted to crafting malicious QR codes that, when scanned, will link a victim’s account to an actor-controlled Signal instance. If successful, future messages will be delivered synchronously to both the victim and the threat actor in real-time, providing a persistent means to eavesdrop on the victim’s secure conversations without the need for full-device compromise.

    Signal security relies on user competence. The user has to be savvy enough to not fall for phishing attempts. All it would take is for one of the morons to have scanned such a QR code for that whole chat to have been compromised. I would bet big money that at least one of these fools had already done so.

    • Australis13@fedia.io
      3·
      6 days ago

      Signal security relies on user competence. The user has to be savvy enough to not fall for phishing attempts. All it would take is for one of the morons to have scanned such a QR code for that whole chat to have been compromised. I would bet big money that at least one of these fools had already done so.

      Considering one of the participants of that Signal chat (Witkoff) was in Russia at the time, I think you would win that bet.