On Tuesday a Senator demanded the Department of Justice investigate “the serious threat to U.S. national security” posed by TeleMessage, a company that makes aa Signal clone used by the Trump administration which 404 Media revealed was hacked on Sunday, with the hacker obtaining the content of some users’ messages and group chats.
The news is the latest piece of fallout from the TeleMessage hack and the Trump administration’s use of Signal, or insecure modified versions, more broadly. On Monday NBC News reported that another hacker had targeted the same company, and TeleMessage suspended service in response to the breaches.
“Communications from several federal agencies, including the most senior national security officials, have been recklessly entrusted to TeleMessage, a foreign company that purports to offer agencies a secure tool to archive messages sent using Signal, the popular secure messaging app,” Senator Ron Wyden’s letter reads. The Washington Post first reported the existence of the letter.
“It would be hard to imagine a less secure way for U.S. government agencies to retain employee messages than decrypting, copying to, and processing those messages on a poorly secured server operated by a foreign company,” the letter adds. TeleMessage is an Israeli company that was acquired by Portland, Oregon company Smarsh in 2024.