TeleMessage, Used by Various U.S. Government Officials, Has Been Breached ⇥ 404media.co

Earlier this week, Joseph Cox of 404 Media noticed a photograph of U.S. official Mike Waltz — previously — using a third-party Signal client from TeleMessage. The whole point of TeleMessage is that it captures and archives messages from third-party messaging apps, including WhatsApp and Signal. Both services are known for being end-to-end encrypted — a degree of protection that disappears when you store messages outside their apps.

And, so.

Joseph Cox, 404 Media, and Micah Lee:

A hacker has breached and stolen customer data from TeleMessage, an obscure Israeli company that sells modified versions of Signal and other messaging apps to the U.S. government to archive messages, 404 Media has learned. The data stolen by the hacker contains the contents of some direct messages and group chats sent using its Signal clone, as well as modified versions of WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat. TeleMessage was recently the center of a wave of media coverage after Mike Waltz accidentally revealed he used the tool in a cabinet meeting with President Trump.

I remember when people used to pretend to care, for political gain, about the storage and retention of sensitive government information.