Pentagon Issued Warning About Signal Messaging One Week Before Its Head Was Caught Using It

Chat N'War

Earlier this week, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed in a startling piece that he'd accidentally been added to a group chat on Signal between key national leadership including defense secretary Pete Hegseth and national security advisor Mark Waltz as they discussed an upcoming offensive in Yemen.

The White House has gone on the defensive, saying no classified information was shared in the chat. But NPR is now reporting that a Pentagon-wide advisory sent to staffers on March 18 — less than a week before the screwup went public — explicitly warned against using Signal for any sharing of information, classified or not.

The advisory claimed that a "vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application," and that Russian hacking groups were "targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest" (a Signal spokesperson told NPR that the company wasn't "aware of any vulnerabilities or supposed ones that we haven't addressed publicly.")

It remains unclear whether the memo is related to Goldberg being inadvertently added to the offending Signal group chat, though the timeline suggests it's possible. But regardless, it shows that the Pentagon knew that discussing an upcoming offensive over a commercial chat app was a horrible idea — even while its head was doing exactly that.

Mixed Signals

As experts told Goldberg, senior defense officials often have dedicated spaces in their homes called "sensitive compartmented information facilities," with approved communication equipment for discussing military activity. By discussing highly sensitive information on Signal while out in public instead, the officials risk exposing the data simply by losing their phones or having them stolen.

The scandal enraged Pentagon officials, including Hegseth.

"Nobody was texting war plans," a fuming Hegseth said in a statement on Monday, accusing Goldberg of being a "highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes" (in reality, the National Security Council confirmed that the chats were authentic.)

Goldberg has since shot back, telling CNN in an interview that Hegseth lied.

"He was texting war plans," he said. "He was texting attack plans. When targets were going to be targeted; how they were going to be targeted; who was at the targets; when the next sequence of attacks was happening."

More on the group chat: Trump National Security Adviser Accidentally Sent Plans for a Bombing Campaign to a Random Journalist

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