The hacker received direct messages and contact information from TeleMessage, an Israeli software company that offers modified versions of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram and other US government apps, according to a report by 404Media. Last week, a photo of former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was posted of him using a Signal clone offered by the company.
TeleMessage allows users to archive their chats in secure messaging programs. However, the hacker reportedly discovered that TeleMessage’s archived chat logs are not end-to-end encrypted, allowing him to access the content of certain messages, government officials’ contact information, and login credentials to the service’s backend.
Although the hacker did not receive messages from Waltz or other members of the government, screenshots of the stolen data seen by 404 Media show the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of customs and border guard officials. When 404 Media called some of these numbers, one person said their name matched the information in the hacked data, and another’s voice mail recording also contained a name that matched.
The communications services used by government officials came under increased scrutiny after Waltz inadvertently connected the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat in March, where military strikes on Yemen were discussed. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegget shared details about the strikes in a separate Signal group that included his wife and “about a dozen” other people, according to The New York Times.
After Waltz was spotted using TeleMessage, 404 Media found that the company had “wiped out its website,” which previously “contained detailed information about the services it offers, what its apps are capable of, and in some cases, direct links to download the archiving programs themselves.” The hacked data reportedly also contained information about the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the Canadian financial institution Scotiabank.
