Mobile numbers, email addresses, passwords Hegseth, Waltz and Gabbard - how easy it is to find the private data of US security politicians online
After the scandal surrounding the Signal chat group, Donald Trump has another problem. The private email addresses and mobile numbers of his most important security politicians can easily be found on the internet.
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- Private data of Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Intelligence Coordinator Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can easily be found on the Internet. This is the result of an investigation by the news magazine "Spiegel".
- Journalists searched commercial personal search engines and hacked customer data published online. They found private mobile numbers, email addresses and even passwords in some cases.
- This could enable hostile intelligence services to infect the devices of members of the government with spyware.
As if the affair surrounding the discussion of US attack plans in a group chat on Signal wasn't enough, high-ranking US security politicians apparently have an even bigger security problem. Their private email addresses, cell phone numbers and passwords can be found quite easily online. This is the result of research carried out by "Der Spiegel".
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Intelligence Coordinator Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are demonstrably affected. A team from Der Spiegel reconstructed their private data from publicly accessible sources. This is a serious security gap: Secret services can use this information to hack the devices of those affected and monitor their communications.
A feast for enemy agents
According to "Spiegel", some of the affected telephone numbers and email addresses are still active. They are linked to online services such as Instagram, LinkedIn or Dropbox and can be assigned to WhatsApp profiles and Signal accounts.
In view of these findings, it does not seem unlikely that foreign intelligence services were able to read the group chat about the attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen. Experts classify the security gap as serious.
According to the Spiegel research team, they found the contact details of Gabbard, Hegseth and Waltz partly in commercial databases and partly in password leaks.
Hegseth's private data particularly easy to find
It was particularly easy to obtain the private email address and mobile number of Defense Minister Pete Hegseth. All they had to do was submit a link to Hegseth's LinkedIn profile to a contact data provider.
They then received an active Gmail address and a mobile number. The Gmail address was found in more than 20 leaks - some with a password. It is said to have been used just a few days ago.
The mobile number and email address of security consultant Mike Waltz were also easy to find. Tulsi Gabbard, on the other hand, was more careful with her personal data: The secret service coordinator has had her data blocked by commercial search engines. However, her email address can be found on WikiLeaks, Reddit and in more than ten data leaks.
