Congressman Admits He Got Hacked, Warns That Signal 'Is Not Secure'

A US Congressman is blasting the Signal messaging app as "not secure" by admitting that hackers hijacked his own account after he fell for a phishing scheme. On Wednesday, outgoing Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) went out of his way to urge other US officials to avoid Signal . Russian state- hackers have been targeting that app, and Bacon is apparently among the victims. In response to a Trump administration officials using Signal to sensitive topics, Bacon wrote : “Signal is not secure and not good for sensitive communications. I was notified by law enforcement and House cyber experts that Russia hacked my Signal months ago." Still, blaming Signal isn't exactly fair, since the hijacking attempts have occurred more often due to human error than to any software vulnerability. Bacon's arrives days after the FBI issued an alert, warning that Russian hackers continue to target “individuals of high intelligence value” by trying to hijack their Signal accounts. Bacon is the chairman of the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI) subcommittee. The hackers haven't broken Signal’s end-to-end encryption; instead, they’ve been using phishing messages that impersonate Signal customer support or a Signal support bot to dupe victims into handing over access. Similar " social engineering " tactics have long bedeviled all kinds of platforms, enabling hackers to hit major corporations and government agencies. The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

On Wednesday, outgoing Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) went out of his way to urge other US officials to avoid Signal . Russian state- hackers have been targeting that app, and Bacon is apparently among the victims. In response to a Trump administration officials using Signal to sensitive topics, Bacon wrote : “Signal is not secure and not good for sensitive communications. I was notified by law enforcement and House cyber experts that Russia hacked my Signal months ago." Still, blaming Signal isn't exactly fair, since the hijacking attempts have occurred more often due to human error than to any software vulnerability. Bacon's arrives days after the FBI issued an alert, warning that Russian hackers continue to target “individuals of high intelligence value” by trying to hijack their Signal accounts. Bacon is the chairman of the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI) subcommittee. The hackers haven't broken Signal’s end-to-end encryption; instead, they’ve been using phishing messages that impersonate Signal customer support or a Signal support bot to dupe victims into handing over access. Similar " social engineering " tactics have long bedeviled all kinds of platforms, enabling hackers to hit major corporations and government agencies. The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

In response to a Trump administration officials using Signal to sensitive topics, Bacon wrote : “Signal is not secure and not good for sensitive communications. I was notified by law enforcement and House cyber experts that Russia hacked my Signal months ago." Still, blaming Signal isn't exactly fair, since the hijacking attempts have occurred more often due to human error than to any software vulnerability. Bacon's arrives days after the FBI issued an alert, warning that Russian hackers continue to target “individuals of high intelligence value” by trying to hijack their Signal accounts. Bacon is the chairman of the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI) subcommittee. The hackers haven't broken Signal’s end-to-end encryption; instead, they’ve been using phishing messages that impersonate Signal customer support or a Signal support bot to dupe victims into handing over access. Similar " social engineering " tactics have long bedeviled all kinds of platforms, enabling hackers to hit major corporations and government agencies. The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

Still, blaming Signal isn't exactly fair, since the hijacking attempts have occurred more often due to human error than to any software vulnerability. Bacon's arrives days after the FBI issued an alert, warning that Russian hackers continue to target “individuals of high intelligence value” by trying to hijack their Signal accounts. Bacon is the chairman of the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI) subcommittee. The hackers haven't broken Signal’s end-to-end encryption; instead, they’ve been using phishing messages that impersonate Signal customer support or a Signal support bot to dupe victims into handing over access. Similar " social engineering " tactics have long bedeviled all kinds of platforms, enabling hackers to hit major corporations and government agencies. The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

The hackers haven't broken Signal’s end-to-end encryption; instead, they’ve been using phishing messages that impersonate Signal customer support or a Signal support bot to dupe victims into handing over access. Similar " social engineering " tactics have long bedeviled all kinds of platforms, enabling hackers to hit major corporations and government agencies. The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

The FBI alert notes that the phishing messages have focused on tricking users into sending their Signal backup recovery key, which can be used to restore the user’s chats on a new phone. Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

Russia’s targeting of Signal has been vast , ensnaring as many as 300 people in Germany, including high-profile politicians. Bacon's was in response to a new article in The Atlantic that documented how several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, used the Signal app last year. One Signal group chat was set to auto-delete messages after eight hours, seemingly violating laws on government record preservation. Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

Last year, the White House’s use of Signal also sparked an embarrassing gaffe after a Trump official accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a group chat that focused on confidential military matters. The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

The use of Signal in the US government has been controversial since it’s technically a commercial messaging app and shouldn’t be used to communicate confidential information. But US lawmakers and officials have actually encouraged its use for non-classified matters, citing its end-to-end encryption, which prevents Signal or any ISP from decrypting the messages. The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

The encryption keys only reside on the smartphones of Signal chat users. But as the saying goes in cybersecurity, humans are often the weakest link. Last month, Bacon told Politico his Signal app was compromised because hackers impersonated a close acquaintance. To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

To stop the threat, Signal has added new built-in safeguards to warn users risky unsolicited messages. "Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN," the nonprofit behind the messaging app said in April. Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."

Bacon also told Politico that "he was not concerned that Moscow had siphoned any classified information from his account because he doesn’t use it to or store sensitive information."