Top US officials' information leaked online

The private contact information of US President Donald Trump's most important security advisers has been found on the Internet.

Journalists from the German magazine Der Spiegel were able to find the mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to top US government officials.

According to Der Spiegel, to do this, the journalists used business search engines along with hacked customer data that had been published on the web.

The officials affected by the leak include National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsett.

Most of these numbers and email addresses are still in use, and some are linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn.

This information is used to create accounts and profiles on apps that track the data in progress; there are also WhatsApp profiles for the corresponding phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.

The report has revealed another serious and previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington.

Intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack into the communications of people whose devices have been compromised by installing spyware.

The security scandal comes after the Atlantic magazine revealed on Monday that Gabbard, Waltz and Hegsett, along with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other officials, discussed a military strike in Yemen in a Signal chat.

The information shared on Signal between participants included intelligence reports and detailed attack plans.

Waltz added the magazine's editor-in-chief to the group chat, according to the Atlantic, but it is not yet clear why he did so.

Calls for Defense Secretary Resignation

A new scandal over the leak of sensitive military information on a messaging app has intensified calls for the U.S. defense secretary to resign.

Sen. Tommy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told TIME in an interview in response to the revelation that Hegsett shared details of a military operation on Signal, “Everybody in that chain should have been fired, but Pete Hegsett should definitely resign.”

Sen. John Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told TIME that “no military officer is going to get away with this,” calling the administration’s handling of the matter “a gross breach of operational security.” “Any military officer who inadvertently discloses such sensitive information or acts recklessly will lose their security clearance and likely face a court-martial,” he said. “He should resign.”

Asked whether Waltz should resign, Ossoff said, “He’s clearly incompetent and he should go.”

Even some Republicans are now pushing for a review. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced Wednesday that he would ask the inspector general to investigate the use of signals intelligence to discuss military operations. Signal is often recommended for use by privacy advocates because of its encrypted messaging, but it is not generally considered secure enough for national security issues.