Pentagon warned of Russian Signal hacker infiltration after massive war plans bungle
According to the Pentagon advisory, officials should stop using the app, even for sending unclassified information, citing a "vulnerability."
"A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application," the advisory, which was sent out on March 18, said, according to NPR.
The advisory states that "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' feature to spy on encrypted conversations." It goes on to note that Google has also identified Russian hackers who are targeting "Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest."
Signal's benefit vs other messaging apps is that it is encrypted, and, in theory, should protect its users' messages from being intercepted by unwanted viewers.
A spokesperson for Signal told the Pentagon that its security has not been broken, but warned that users falling victim to basic phishing attacks could still put their message privacy at risk.
"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," Signal spokesman Jun Harada told the Pentagon.
The Pentagon memo included a note that "third-party messaging apps (e.g. Signal) are permitted by policy for unclassified accountability/recall exercises but are not approved to process or store non-public unclassified information."
Hegseth and other Trump administration officials used the app while planning the bombing of Houthi sites earlier in March. Even if Signal's security is top-notch, it doesn't stop people included in the group chat who shouldn't be there from viewing the information — people like the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.
In a wild story published earlier this week, Goldberg explained how he was included in the sensitive group chat and watched in real time as the Houthi bombing was planned.
Hegseth denied the incident happened and called Goldberg's character into question, but the Pentagon confirmed its veracity.
Goldberg told CNN that Hegseth was lying, and said he has not published what he saw because he considered it "too confidential" and "too technical" to be made public, fearing that doing so would put US servicemembers at risk.
Despite the unprecedented breach, Donald Trump insisted that no classified information had been shared in the group chat, and downplayed the incident before revealing that "a lot of the military" uses the app, which is known to be targeted by Russian hackers.
'It's just something that can happen. You can even prepare for it, and it can happen.' Trump said. "It's used by a lot of the military, and I think, successfully. But sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That's one of the prices you pay when you're not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly."
The president said his administration will "look into it."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump–Putin meeting, retail sales, consumer data: What to Watch
Market Domination Overtime host Josh Lipton takes a look at the top stories for investors to watch on Friday, Aug. 15. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Alaska for the US–Russia summit around 3:30 p.m. The two leaders are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine and the possibility of peace agreements. Trade between the US and Russia will also be a topic of discussion. US retail sales data for July will be posted in the morning. Economists are expecting in Core retail sales to slow by 0.3% from the previous month. August preliminary consumer sentiment will also be out in the morning, as economists anticipate a slight uptick to 62% from July's 61.7%. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime. Time now for to watch that would be Friday, August 15th. We're gonna start off on geopolitics. It's been a busy week of inflation data, but now all eyes turning to Alaska for President Trump's summit with President Putin. It is the first face-to-face meeting between US president and Russian counterpart since President Biden met with Putin in June 2021. And the summit could have implications for the war in Ukraine as well as the oil markets. And moving over to the economy, US retail sales data for July, that is coming out on Friday. Commer forecasting total retail sales to hold steady at 0.6%, while core retail sales slow to 0.3% on a month over month basis. The new data signaling that consumers are still spending overall, but underlying spending momentum is softening. And speaking of the consumer, we're going to be getting consumer sentiment data for August on Friday. That number's expected to tick up slightly to 62, giving us more insight into the health of the consumer and signaling that they're feeling slightly more optimistic about the economy.
USA Today
28 minutes ago
- USA Today
It was sold in 1867, but some Russians want Alaska back from the U.S.
Theories that the United States swindled Russia out of Alaska in 1867 have percolated through the decades. Way back in 1991, as the once-mighty Soviet Union disintegrated and Westerners cheered, Vladimir Putin's favorite rock and roll band released 'Don't Fool Around, America,' a patriotic hit about an even older lost cause – Russia's 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States. This bouncy, accordion-driven single ignored the disorienting collapse of the Soviet dictatorship and instead pointed listeners east, across the Bering Strait, to the 49th U.S. state, demanding: 'Give us our dear Alaska back/Give us our dear native land.' Now the song, by rabble-rousing rockers Lyuba (the Loud Ones), has taken on new significance as President Donald Trump prepares to host Vladimir Putin at an Alaskan military base – and conspiracy theories resurface claiming Uncle Sam swindled Mother Russia out of the 665,000-square-mile Arctic jewel. Russian America Part theory, part wish, longstanding Alaska conspiracies gain prominence in Russia during times of conflict, when nationalists invoke perceived betrayals of the 19th century Russian and 20th century Soviet empires, said Andrei Znamenski, a history professor at the University of Memphis. Such talk 'is amplified' now, amid the Ukraine war and the August 15 Trump-Putin summit, Znamensi told USA TODAY. 'It turns out that Russian America was not sold to the United States. The real events were completely different,' one Russian news outlet wrote recently, describing an alternative – and, historians say, false – account in which Russia's claimed dominion in Alaska was merely leased to the U.S., with the lease long expired. An 'act of spite' The first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska was founded in 1784, and the state today still preserves a handful of Russian Orthodox churches. Some residents of the Aleutian Islands continue to practice a syncretic combination of Orthodox Christianity and shamanism, Znamenski said. But after Russia's defeat at the hands of the British in the costly 1854-56 Crimean War, Tsar Nicholas II decided to cut his losses and relinquish the difficult-to-defend Alaska. Britain, which ruled Canada, was eyeing the rich territory, so Nicholas sold it for $7 million to a less bellicose bidder: The United States. 'It was an act of spite' against England, Znamenski said. Nicholas hasn't been forgiven by nationalist writers, some of whom see him as the dupe of Masonic and Jewish conspiracies. One author, Ivan Mironov, wrote his 2007 book, 'A Fateful Deal: How Alaska was Sold,' while in jail for plotting the assassination of a reformist former deputy prime minister. Paradise lost Alaska and Crimea remain linked in some ways today, both viewed as historic Russian regions lost by weak leaders – Yeltsin, the first president of independent Russia, is reviled for recognizing Crimea as part of Ukraine after the USSR collapsed. In 2016, two years after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, a black granite memorial was raised in Sailors' Square of the Black Sea city of Yevpatoria with a command to future generations: "We returned Crimea, it's up to you to return Alaska." 'Siberia and Alaska, the two shores are the same,' Lyuba sang. 'Women, horses, thrills along the way.' A music video for the song begins with an animated machine gun severing Alaska from the North American continent. (Lyuba's lead singer was later elected to the Russian parliament, or Duma, as a member of Putin's United Russia party.) All or nothing For most of the Russian nationalist intelligentsia, Alaska is less a jewel to be recovered than a warning against any concession to the West. Alexander Dugin, a leading intellectual of Russia's 'Eurasianist' far right who's closely tied to Putin, has often raised the Alaska example. Dugin, whose adult daughter was killed in a 2022 car bombing blamed on Ukraine's secret service – for which he was the presumed target – was deadly serious in discussing the stakes of the Alaska summit in a recent article. 'Putin has repeatedly admitted that the West never keeps its word, constantly deceives and distorts, and to trust its leaders in any way is impossible under any circumstances,' he wrote August 13 in the Russian-language newsweekly Stolista-S. 'For Trump, it is a deal, for us fate,' Dugin said. 'Ukraine will either be ours or nothing at all.'
Axios
28 minutes ago
- Axios
Pentagon clarifies Secretary Hegseth's repost on women's right to vote
A Department of Defense official faced pressure Thursday to reaffirm Secretary Pete Hegseth's commitment to women's right to vote after the Pentagon chief reposted a video of a pastor in the secretary's church saying the opposite. Why it matters: Reposting the video is a part of a growing list of controversial moves Hegseth has made toward women amid his effort to purge the military of " wokeness." What they're saying: "Of course the Secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote," Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Thursday. "I'm not going to litigate every single aspect of what he may or may not believe in a certain video," she said. Catch up quick: In the video, CNN interviews Christian Nationalist Pastor Doug Wilson and other pastors from Hegseth's church, the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. One of the pastors in the video, Toby Sumpter, said that families should vote as a household. "And I would ordinarily be the one to cast the vote," he said. "But I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household." A separate pastor said he would support repealing the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Hegseth reposted the video with the comment, "All of Christ for All of Life," leading to questions about the secretary's views on women's rights. Wilson, of the Pentagon, said at the press conference that Hegseth "very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings." The Pentagon referred Axios to Wilson's press conference when reached for further comment. Zoom out: The secretary has repeatedly come under fire for his stances on women in the military, and has previously said that the military "allowed itself to go woke." Generals and admirals "involved in any of the DEI woke s--t has got to go," Hegseth said. The secretary removed the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval Academy, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids last month, removing her before the end of her expected three-year term. Homeland Security announced the removal of Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who served as the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, was fired earlier this year.
