As reported by The Hill and many other papers, “The German news outlet, Der Spiegel, reportedly found private contact information for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and national security adviser Mike Waltz, who were all involved in the Signal group chat security breach.
The news site’s report said each individual’s email address and phone number were readily available on the dark web.”
This is probably only the top of the iceberg.
It is obviously the first time that the personal details (phone numbers, passwords etc) of so many top US politicians are found on the dark web – this is a major hack, a major cyber attack on the US Administration. While many countries, criminal organizations or even US opposition groups have an interest or willingness to launch a cyber attack against the Trump Administration, the very moment of this attack, early to mid March 2025, may already limit the cercle of wrongdoers.
As well, the persons whose Signal communication has been revealed to an anti-Trump journalist, can further delimit the cercle of wrongdoers.
The fact that certain details about the latest US strike on the Houthi Rebels was revealed to that journalist may be irrelevant for encircling the wrongdoers.
Members of the chat group were Defense Secretary Hegseth, National Security Advisor Waltz, Vice-President Vance, CIA Director Rattcliff, Director of Nationional Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Special Envoy to Ukraine Wittkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Bessent and a few other high ranking officials.
This group has been discussing Europe, Ukraine and on the sideline, Yemen.
Somehow it happened that The Atlantic’s editor-in chief Goldberg was added to the Signal chat group. How that happened is still unclear – was it a wrong handling by Waltz? He declared that he wanted to add another person, not Goldberg – it may have been possible that a hack slipped Goldberg’s details onto Waltz’ phone under another name ..
Nevertheless, the fact that personal details of those high ranking US officials are found on the dark web is not only alarming, but an indication for a substantial cyber attack. As well, it seems that all those high ranking officials used Signal, and trusted the Signal app. Signal was, indeed, trusted. Looking at Signal’s history, it becomes clear that it has been well integrated into the US governmental communication sphere, like What’s up. It was considered safe for government members.
Knowing that Russia and Ukraine were able to hack Signal (Russia banned Signal for security concerns, Ukraine cooperated with Signal to obtain information about Russia), the cercle of wrongdoers seems to get smaller. Of course, not only Russia and Ukraine may have been able to hack Signal … Threat hunter Dan Black of Mediant warns that several APT groups have perfected the abuse of Signal’s “linked devices” feature that enables the privacy-themed chat and voice messenger to be used on multiple devices concurrently. In other words: if someone steals your password, he can set-up Signal on another device and act like you, listen to you and you will never know it.
But who has an interest to discredit the US Administration? Why did Goldberg publish the information – about a Signal chat of which knew that he would never be invited to if not by accident or due to a hack? What is the role and the implication of Goldberg in this new scandal? Was it Russia or Ukraine hacking into the US top officials Signal chats? And what is the role of Der Spiegel – were they providing others with personal information on US top officers which they claim to have found on the dark web? If Der Spiegel was involved, it would not only face law suites for damages.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
