Politics NSA warned of vulnerabilities in Signal app a month before Houthi strike chat

[riversedge]

Source: CBS news



Updated on: March 25, 2025 / 7:14 PM EDT / CBS News

The National Security Agency sent out an operational security special bulletin to its employees in February 2025 warning them of vulnerabilities in using the encrypted messaging application Signal, according to internal NSA documents obtained by CBS News.

News of the NSA bulletin comes amid the continued fallout from an explosive article published Monday in The Atlantic. The publication's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, detailed how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inadvertently disclosed war plans to him in an encrypted Signal chat group two hours before the U.S. military launched attacks against Houthi militia in Yemen. Goldberg wrote that Hegseth's messages included "precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing."

The NSA is an arm of the Defense Department and specializes in signals intelligence — which is derived from electronic transmissions — and cybersecurity. The agency is responsible for monitoring, collecting and processing information and data for U.S. national security interests.

The unclassified but for-official-use-only documents provided to CBS News by a senior U.S. intelligence official are entitled "Signal Vulnerability" and were sent out the month before Goldberg was accidentally added to the group chat allegedly by national security adviser Mike Waltz.

"A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application. The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information," the internal bulletin begins. ..................................









Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-signal-app-vulnerabilities-before-houthi-strike-chat/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Isn't that Waltz' department? Didn't that warning occur during the current tRump regime?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Comes under the DNI, ie the Russian sympathizer Tulsi Gabbard

so her reaction was probably "good - I know my fellow morons are using it." She was in the initial leak group, though it's unclear if she was taking part in the leaks themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_National_Intelligence

[Irish_Dem]

2. They simply do not care if China and Russia have all the classified information.

China and Russia are their allies.

[LiberalArkie]

3. I think they really want to degrade the U.S.

[Irish_Dem]

5. 100% certain this is the goal.

China and Russia rise to power.
US sinks.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Thanks.

I ran across a meme yesterday that claimed the OPSEC bulletin came out while the chat was happening, with the tag line, "You can't make this stuff up"

I guess you can actually make this stuff up.

[Martin68]

7. This makes the breach of security protocols that much more negligent, incompetent, and stupid.

[jmowreader]

8. And here's the thing...

Even if Signal was absolutely perfect in every way, unless it had been approved by the NSA they couldn't have used it for this.

And the NSA is NOT going to approve a "free download no questions asked, free to use" cryptosystem. You're basically begging the enemy to try to break it out...and worse, since it's Trump we're talking about here (you know, the asshole the Soviets owned in the 1980s and the Russians still do) there's a very strong possibility that the FSB was given the login credentials for Hegseth's group chat.

This is above and beyond what Julius Rosenberg did, and the only kindness the feds gave Mr. Rosenberg was not giving him a public hanging.