Signal was found to be used by the US for confidential communications, unintentionally disclosing its plans for Yemen
Consider this scenario: You are a journalist at home, looking at your phone, when all of a sudden a senior official in the US government sends you a message via Signal, a WhatsApp substitute. Not "Hey, did you see this on Twitter?" or "How was your weekend?" No, a comprehensive strategy for an impending military assault on Yemen.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the chief editor of The Atlantic, experienced precisely this. The journalist described in a March 24 article how he was unintentionally added to a chat group where senior Trump administration officials discussed the specifics of a bombing raid on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Senior administration officials with direct access to classified information, including Vice President J.D. Obama, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, were part of the group, which was dubbed the Houthi PC small group (a name that implies secrecy).
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was inadvertently added to the group, initially believed it to be a joke. He discovered, however, that what he had witnessed was genuine after reading the messages. The United Kingdom launched a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15, just two hours after Goldberg read the attack details. In a statement, the National Security Council said it was looking into the addition of a journalist's number to the Signal group chat.
Although Signal is unclassified and vulnerable to hacking, government officials have used it for organizational communications.
The disclosure coincides with a recent announcement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office to crack down on the leak of classified information.
In an unclassified request, Hegseth spokesman Sean Parnell did not immediately answer questions about why the defense secretary made the war plan public.
Which is more private and secure, Threema or Signal?