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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will be subject to Pentagon investigation after allegedly classified military plans were inadvertently shared with a journalist via a commercial messaging app.
The Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense has announced that it is investigating the use of Signal by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth after potentially classified material was shared via the commercial messaging app Signal in March.
Hegseth joined National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and several other senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, to discuss the planning of airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen last month.
Hegseth shared information about the timing of attacks and the weapons platforms being employed, details that were later revealed after the editor of The Atlantic revealed he had somehow been added to the conversation.
According to a memo to Hegseth outlining the investigation, the Inspector General – Steven A. Stebbins, currently acting in the role – received several letters from both individual members of Congress, as well as from both the chairman and a ranking member of the Senate armed services committee.
“We are conducting this evaluation in response to a March 26, 2025 letter I received from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate armed services committee, requesting that I conduct an inquiry into recent public reporting on the Secretary of Defense’s use of an unclassified commercially available messaging application to discuss information pertaining to military actions in Yemen in March 2025,” the memo said.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DOD personnel complied with DOD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business.”
One of the many points of contention raised by the use of Signal for military planning is that conversations can be set to automatically delete themselves after a preset period, a feature believed to have been used by the members of the Yemen planning chat.
“Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements,” the memo said.
Speaking to Cyber Daily regarding what is now being referred to as Signalgate, Matthew Wilson – co-founder and chairman of Australian-owned digital security firm Penten – said that governments ban the use of apps such as Signal “with good reason”.
“No matter how secure these consumer apps may appear, they’re not built or operated to government standards for classified information: there’s no control, no audit, and no assurance,” Wilson said.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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