Military Plans Got Leaked Through Signal, but What Is the App Actually Used For?

Publication The Atlantic is reporting that their editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to a Signal messaging group with several high-level government officials. These officials, which included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, were planning a bombing in Yemen.

The messages that Goldberg reported receiving included sensitive military planning details, and Goldberg's reporting suggests that this represents a pretty massive data breach of sensitive intelligence information, which should never be shared through platforms like Signal. Following the data breach, though, many wanted to better understand what Signal actually is and what it's used for. Here's what we know:

The Signal app is an open-source, encrypted messaging app that can be used to send messages between individuals or groups of people. Like Discord, Slack, or Messenger, Signal allows users to send images, videos, voice notes, as well as regular old text messages back and forth, and the fact that it's encrypted means that it's more secure than some comparable platforms.

That encryption might be part of the reason that those inside the Trump administration decided to use the app, but, as The Atlantic report suggests, phones should not be used for these kinds of sensitive communications, regardless of what app is being used. That's because foreign governments can easily get access to a person's phone, and as this incident suggests, it's also possible that a journalist or some other person can unintentionally be added to a group where they don't belong.

Another reason that Signal is attractive is that, unlike some of its competitors, it's a nonprofit, which means that it only earns enough revenue to sustain its operations. The app is owned by The Signal Foundation, which was co-founded by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton. Because the company is not focused on generating a profit, it can better cater to the needs of its users and is not overly obsessed with growth as a metric.

Signal's value proposition is, above all else, security, but that security is meant to be for regular people who are using the app. Government employees have an entirely separate apparatus for sensitive communications with one another and don't need to take advantage of publicly available tools.

What's clear here, though, is that the Signal app is almost definitely not to blame for the leak. Goldberg gained access to this information because he was added to a group where he shouldn't have been and because none of the other high profile people inside the administration had the sense to ask who he was or why he was there.

What this does suggest, though, is that the administration is not overly concerned with the ways it shares sensitive military intelligence. There's no evidence for this yet, but it's safe to assume that many of the administration's communiques have been compromised not just by journalists at The Atlantic, but also by foreign adversaries.