President Trump’s Ukraine and the Middle East envoy Steve Vitkofy was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was A group involved in chat With more than a dozen other top administration officers – and inadvertently, a journalist – Messaging app signalA CBS news analysis of open-sources flight information and Russian media reporting has been revealed.
According to data from the flight tracking website flightradar24, Vicchoff arrived in Moscow immediately after the afternoon after noon on 13 March, and shortly after the Russian state media broadcast the video to broadcast the video of his motorcycle’s motorcycle. About 12 hours later, he was added to the “Houthi PC Small Group” chat at the signal with other top Trump administration officials to discuss a adjacent military campaign against Hauthis in Yemen, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, which included in chat for unclear reasons.
Goldberg has not remembered Witcoff by making any comments in group chat till Saturday, when he returned to America after leaving Russia and returning to America, with a stop in Baku, Azerbaijan on Friday. Sources told CBS News on Wednesday that there was an indication on any tool that was brought to Russia to a senior messenger.
Speaking on Wednesday during a briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Karolin Levitt said that Witchoff did not have a personal equipment or a phone issued by his government in Moscow. He said he was “given access to the classified protected server” by the United States government, and was very careful about his communication when he was in Russia. ”
Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise on the signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were surprised to use to discuss senior military plans of senior officials of the Trump administration.
It is not clear that Vitcoff was included in a phone or a individual device was included in the signal chat by the US government, but American officer The Defense Department has been discouraged by using messaging apps on government equipment including the Department of Defense.
In his social media post on Wednesday, Witcoff said that “I had no access to my personal equipment until I returned from my journey.”
“I only had a safe phone provided by the government for special circumstances with me when you visit areas where you don’t want your equipment to be compromised,” Witcoff said.
The White House has not answered the CBS News question as to whether the phone released by the government of Vitkoff questioned the signal account on it. during a Congress hearing On Wednesday, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said, “The signal message app is already installed on government equipment.”
On Tuesday, Levit criticized the Atlantic Report, stating that no “war plan” was discussed, and, without indication, the office of the White House lawyer provided guidance to the top platforms of the top officials of the White House, saying that to communicate safe and skillful as possible. “
Two members of the group chat, Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, appeared for the Senate Intelligence Committee Pre-planned hearing The worldwide security threats which continued on Wednesday. Ratcliffe admitted during the hearing on Tuesday that he was part of the chat.
American MPs, both Democrats and Republicans, have questioned the use of the commercial communication forum for negotiations, which Goldberg revealed on Monday in its report for Atlantic.
During the group discussion on the signal, Goldberg said, Ratcliffe, at 5:24 pm, named an active CIA intelligence officer in the chat, which was midnight in Russia after midnight. Witchoff’s flight did not leave Moscow till around 2 pm local time, and Sergei Markov, a former advisor to Putin President, said that a telegram post stated that Witchoff and Putin were meeting till 1:30 pm in Kremlin.
Neither the Kremlin nor the White House confirmed the time of Witchoff meeting with Putin.
The signal has a good reputation for safety in parts as it is built on the open-source code and therefore it can be inspected for weaknesses, a consultant working on cyber security Neel Ashdown told CBS News.
Eshdown said, however, in view of whether the stage is safe, “to remember the crucks of the problem, which is to question whether the use of that application in that environment was in line with policies and procedures to explain that level information, and if it was not, it becomes an issue.”
The signal app offers end-to-end encryption, which means that the messages sent on the platform cannot be read by the sender and the receiver. However, this encryption is not impermeable.
The Google Threat Intelligence Group warned last month to “align threat -threatening dangers of Russia” to compromise the signal messenger accounts used by individuals of interest for Russia’s intelligence services. ,
Ukraine’s top cyber defense agency warned of targeted attacks last week, which motivates the signal accounts compromised to send malware to employees of defense industry firms and members of Ukraine’s armed forces. Bulletin released by Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT -UU) on March 18 indicated that the attacks started this month, including links of messages stored in signal messages, which were vocal as a meeting report. According to the memorandum, some messages were sent by existing contacts, increasing the possibility of opening the fishing link.
Some methods of kidnapping the smartphone also do not require direct access to the device, a global cyber security advisor Jake Moore, a global cyber security advisor at the software and cyber security firm ESET.
One of the most famous cyber threats to emerge in the last decade is Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli firm NSO group and allegedly Journalists and workers were used to targetPegasus was designed to install a distance on mobile devices and then can take control of cameras, messaging apps, microphones, or even screens, even without user knowing that it is installed, Moore explained.
While safe government communication channels exist for sensitive communication, Moore said in practice, the method chosen for such communication comes down to the balance of convenience vs. security. ”
While the risk is minimal to the members of the public, he said “those conversations are more secure, or sensitivity among them, you will have to increase discomfort, as security will have to be paramount.”
Jennifer Jacobs and Nicole Sagang contributed to this report.
