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Technology

Technology

The Big Story

Signal use back in spotlight amid Hegseth controversy

Revelations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive military info with family members on another Signal chat have renewed scrutiny on use of the messaging platform.

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Earlier this week, The New York Times published a bombshell report stating Hegseth shared the same attack plans he had disclosed on an earlier reported Signal chat with his wife, Jennifer Hegseth, who is a former Fox News producer and is not employed by the Defense Department — and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle.

The report came less than a month after The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he was included in a Signal group chat with more than a dozen top Trump administration officials.

The administration officials, according to Goldberg, used the chat to discuss plans for airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen hours before they were launched.

The Atlantic piece put Signal, a messaging service offering end-to-end encryption, under the spotlight as cybersecurity experts weighed the risks of using a third party app for sensitive information.

The story also raised broader questions about which platforms government officials are permitted to use and the cybersecurity measures in place for potential information breaches.

The Trump administration fiercely defended Hegseth and his leadership on Monday.

In the wake of the latest news, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to investigate Trump administration officials’ use of Signal and other third-party messaging applications.

Schiff, a frequent critic of President Trump, urged NARA to make sure the messages sent over the encrypted messaging app by Trump officials are preserved and warned that, apart from national security concerns, utilizing Signal “creates profound risk of non-compliance with document preservation.”

“I write to request that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) take immediate action to preserve records and pursue remedial measures in connection with the use of Signal and other commercial messaging applications and email by Trump Administration Officials,” Schiff wrote in a four-page letter.

Schiff warned in the letter that in “addition to the national security risks, the use of messaging applications like Signal creates profound risk of non-compliance with document preservation requirements because they allow users to create settings to automatically delete messages.”

Our colleague Filip Timotija has

© The Hill