WhatsApp is Full of Spies--and Trump Officials. What Could Go Wrong?

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/whatsapp-trump-hacking/

One expert has “zero doubt” White House communications have been hacked.

AJ VICENS Reporter

The phones of senior government and military officials in multiple US-allied countries were targeted with a hacking tool via WhatsApp, a popular encrypted messaging application, according to a new Reuters report. Multiple Trump administration officials are known to have used WhatsApp to carry out sensitive conversations, raising the prospect that their communications have been intercepted.

The report, by Reuters’ Chris Bing and Raphael Satter, comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook, against NSO Group, an Israeli technology firm that specializes in developing tools that allow governments to hack and collect intelligence. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a California federal court, alleges that the firm used WhatsApp servers and technology to target roughly 1,400 users between January 2018 and May 2019, including human rights activists, journalists, and politicians. WhatsApp released a fix for the vulnerability in May, addressing a flaw that allowed attackers to surreptitiously access a victim’s text messages, contacts, emails, and other sensitive information. NSO Group denies the accusation, and says it will “vigorously fight them.”

In March, the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, revealed that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his most trusted associates, was using WhatsApp to “communicate with foreign leaders.” Kushner has had extensive dealings with political figures throughout the middle east. Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union and a key figure in in the administration’s campaign to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit the president, communicated with other US diplomats about the effort over WhatsApp. During Trump’s run for the presidency campaign chairman Paul Manafort regularly sent polling data to a Russian associate via the app.

“I have zero doubt that over time at least some of Kushner’s communications were swept up,” says Jake Williams, the founder of Rendition Infosec and a former NSA hacker. “It’s important to consider that even if Kushner wasn’t a direct target, he could have been targeted indirectly by compromising those he communicates with.”

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Previous thread on this topic posted yesterday: https://www.democraticunderground.com/117813022

[Initech]

1. If anyone is shocked by this, I have a copy of "Art Of The Deal" to sell you!

[Mc Mike]

2. Purposeful. A 'back channel' out in the open. Jar jar is pleased.

So is vladdie.

[crickets]

3. Yep. Brazenly out in the open in more ways than one.

VMware on White House Cybersecurity: ‘The Night’s Watch Is Very Thin’

The internal memo, which warns that “the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again,” comes after at least a dozen high-level cybersecurity officials have resigned or been pushed out of office, Axios reports.

Dimitrios Vastakis, a senior White House cybersecurity director, wrote the Oct. 17 memo, which also served as his resignation letter. He previously worked in the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO), which the Obama administration established in 2014 following a breach of an unclassified White House network by Russian hackers.

In July, the Trump administration dissolved the OCISO and gave its tasks to the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Axios also reports that the Trump administration is trying to force out these senior-level cybersecurity staff — especially those hired under Obama — and sources familiar with the changes said this could leave the White House vulnerable to a “network compromise.”

[Mc Mike]

4. No one's stronger on Nat'l Security than Rump.

[erronis]

5. But it isn't the US's security - it is the USSR's. How would his "base" know that he was a traitor?

It takes a bit more intelligence than is usual in that group.

[Mc Mike]

6. Yep. Russia First. MRGA.

Some of his base DOES know he's a traitor, those assholes at his rallies who wear the 'Rather Be Russian than Democrat' shirts.

[erronis]

7. And how many of the faces wearing hats, waving signs, are paid actors?

It's been fun, the few times I can stomach watching a minute or two, to look at the expressions of those that are hand-picked to be behind his royal trumpass while the cameras are rolling.

I've seen a variety of boredom, annoyance, WTF glances, yawns, whatevers. Whenever the attendees start to raise their identical posters, it's as if there is a cue.

Do your job or you don't get your $50 IOU.

[Mc Mike]

8. Yeah, he'll always rent a crowd. His actual human support is so slight and negligent.