White House 'security disaster' continues

Mr. Waltz explains the incident of adding the wrong journalist to the chat group. Photo: Washington Post .

According to the Washington Post , members of the National Security Council under President Donald Trump, including White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, used personal Gmail accounts to conduct government business.

The officials were previously criticized for accidentally including a journalist in a chat group discussing military plans on Signal, which is a much less secure method than the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Even though no sensitive documents were transmitted via Gmail, this still poses a high risk of information theft and shows a lack of responsibility for security by senior officials.

Disappointment from the White House

Specifically, according to the Washington Post , a senior aide to Waltz used Gmail to discuss highly technical issues with colleagues at other government agencies, including sensitive military locations and powerful weapons systems involved in an ongoing conflict.

Meanwhile, officials at the National Security Council (NSC) used personal Gmail accounts. Waltz’s interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, according to email headers.

Michael Waltz, US National Security Advisor, continues to disappoint on security issues. Photo: Reuters.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said he had seen no evidence that Waltz used personal email as described. He also said Waltz always made sure to forward information to government email when receiving work documents from former contacts.

"Waltz has never and would never send confidential information through an unsecured account," Hughes said.

Hughes has also previously said that Signal was not used for classified material. However, a senior administration official said Waltz also created and managed other Signal chat groups, where members of the cabinet discussed sensitive topics, including the situation in Somalia and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Waltz’s mistake in inviting the wrong journalist to his Signal chat group angered Trump and caused frustration within his cabinet. Trump publicly defended him but later met with the vice president and chief of staff to decide whether to keep Waltz.

Mr. Waltz is still on the job, but that is largely because Mr. Trump does not want to give the victory to the liberal media, according to a senior administration official.

Political fallout from the leak

Data security experts have expressed concern that government encryption systems are not being used for business communications. The biggest concern is that email is opening the door to cyberattacks, phishing scams, and other forms of digital data breaches.

“Without GPG (an encryption software), emails are not end-to-end encrypted and message content can be intercepted and read at multiple points, including on Google’s email servers,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In a Signal chat group about the Trump administration’s March strike on Houthi fighters in Yemen, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailed the process, timing, and weapons systems that could have endangered American pilots in the war.

The conversation also made public the possibility that the Israeli military's surveillance capabilities are shared with the US. Israeli authorities have also expressed frustration with this.

Trump was more concerned about a freelance journalist being included in the chat group than about leaking secrets to foreign adversaries, U.S. officials said, and they found Waltz’s denials increasingly hard to believe.

“He (Waltz) told people he had never met me or spoken to me,” said Jeff Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, who was added to the chat group. He also said that phone numbers do not “suction” into another phone.

Mr. Trump refrained from firing Waltz after the leak. Photo: Reuters.

While most Trump administration officials have downplayed the Signal leak publicly, some, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have admitted that it was a serious mistake.

Waltz's actions have also opened the door for criticism from other factions. Democrats have used the incident as an example of incompetence and mismanagement by the administration, while some in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party have painted Waltz as a conservative with ties to George W. Bush.

Michael Waltz has many years of experience in the Republican national security community, and is a former special operations officer. He has also been a long-time advocate for the importance of information security.

Source: https://znews.vn/tham-hoa-bao-mat-o-nha-trang-tiep-dien-post1542638.html