(José Niño, Headline USA) If a picture is worth a thousand words, this snapshot of Michael Waltz’s phone screen may be worth millions in security risks.
Several weeks after “SignalGate,” former National Security Adviser Michael Waltz created new security vulnerabilities by using a message-capturing service rather than genuine encrypted communications.
A Reuters photograph captured ousted National Security Adviser Mike Waltz checking his phone during a White House cabinet meeting, per a report by Wired.
While initially appearing to show the end-to-end encrypted Signal app, closer examination revealed “TM SGNL”– TeleMessage Signal, an Israeli-developed application designed to archive communications that would otherwise remain private.
A photo taken this week showed Mike Waltz using an app that looks like—but is not—Signal to communicate with top officials. "I don't even know where to start with this," says one expert. https://t.co/o5ZV8FxpPT
— WIRED (@WIRED) May 2, 2025
This revelation follows March’s “SignalGate” scandal, where Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a sensitive Signal group chat discussing military strikes in Yemen.
Waltz admitted responsibility, telling Fox News, “I take full responsibility. I built the group. We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.”
The controversy centers not on Signal itself, but on Waltz’s apparent switch to TeleMessage’s archiving product. While Signal provides strong privacy protections through true end-to-end encryption, TeleMessage creates duplicates of communications in centralized archives – potentially compromising security.
Security experts manifested their concerns at the use of a third-party archiving tool for sensitive government communications.
“I don’t even know where to start with this,” said Jake Williams, a former NSA hacker and the current vice president of research and development at Hunter Strategy. “It’s mind-blowing that the federal government is using Israeli tech to route extremely sensitive data for archival purposes. You just know that someone is grabbing a copy of that data.”
Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matt Green added pointedly: “I have no doubt the leadership of the US national security apparatus ran this software through a full information-assurance process to ensure there was no information leakage to foreign nations. Because if they didn’t, we are screwed.”
There are also concerns that TeleMessage could subject U.S. government officials to Israeli intelligence operations due to the Israeli company’s connections to military apparatus.
Guy Levit, TeleMessage’s CEO and co-founder, served “as the head of the planning and development of one of the IDF’s Intelligence elite technical units” from 1996 until 1999, according to his official biography. He co-founded TeleMessage immediately following his service in this intelligence role.
Gil Shapira, co-founder and Vice President of Business Development, served “in the Israeli Air Force from 1993 – 1999 as a computer programmer, project manager and team leader of the IAF’s special R&D software development unit.” Like Levit, Shapira moved directly from his military technical role to founding TeleMessage.
There appears to be significant movement of personnel between TeleMessage and other Israeli security and intelligence-linked firms.
As reported by Drop Site News, “Tech professionals have moved between companies like TeleMessage and some of the leading Israeli spyware firms.”
Specific examples include Alon Falah, a former technical support manager at TeleMessage who left to join NSO Group, a controversial Israeli spyware company.
Another employee, Itzhak Demoza, joined TeleMessage after working at Cellebrite, a company known for making phone hacking technology used by law enforcement agencies.
For a national security team already under fire, Waltz’s latest blunder is a stark reminder that the stakes for secure White House communications have never been higher.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
