Efani<p>It only took 15 minutes to break it.</p><p>A hacker has reportedly breached TeleMessage - a company that sells modified versions of Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram to archive secure messages for U.S. government officials. One of its most high-profile users? Former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who was recently photographed using TeleMessage’s Signal clone during a White House cabinet meeting.</p><p>The breach exposed private chat logs, group messages, and backend systems - including data connected to Customs and Border Protection, Coinbase, and other major institutions.</p><p>Let that sink in: apps originally designed for end-to-end encryption were compromised because someone thought it was a good idea to alter them for archiving.</p><p>And that’s the real story here.</p><p>When you take something private - like Signal - and modify it to record and store messages, you’re not just bypassing encryption. You’re betting that your version will be more secure than the original. Spoiler: it wasn’t.</p><p>TeleMessage, recently acquired by Smarsh, has now suspended operations. Its site quietly removed references to Signal. And the debate around tampering with secure protocols is louder than ever.</p><p>The takeaway for high-risk individuals? Whether you're a government official, executive, or activist - if your secure comms are being archived, they’re not secure. Period.</p><p>At <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@Efani" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>Efani</span></a></span>, we don’t modify encryption. We protect the infrastructure around it - the SIM, the carrier, the endpoint. Because real security doesn’t begin and end with an app. It’s the system that surrounds it.</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Cybersecurity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Cybersecurity</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Signal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Signal</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/DataBreach" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DataBreach</span></a></p>