NYT reveals Pentagon chief's phone number being accessible on public websites

An investigation by a US media outlet revealed that US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's personal phone number, which was being used for the Signal messenger app, was publicly accessible on the internet.

This revelation was published by The New York Times, Caliber.Az reports, claiming that the number could be found on WhatsApp, Facebook, and a sports gaming website. Their article highlights that this fact was first discovered by the German Der Spiegel investigative publication.

The article further confirmed that it was the same number through which the defence secretary, using the Signal commercial messaging app, disclosed flight data for American strikes on the Houthi militia in Yemen on March 24.

During that incident, the Editor-in-Chief of another major US publication was accidentally added to a group chat on the Signal app made up of senior White House officials that were discussing the progress of various military operations, including imminent airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“There’s zero per cent chance that someone hasn’t tried to install Pegasus or some other spyware on his phone,” Mike Casey, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Centre, said in an interview with the NYT. “He is one of the top five, probably, most targeted people in the world for espionage.”

According to the article, Hegseth used his personal number to register on a sports betting website under the name “Pete Hegseth” in August 2024, while a number believed to belong to his wife was used to register a second account only two weeks later. Hegseth’s number was also discovered on the Airbnb platform and in the Microsoft Teams video calling app.

This information surfaces amid the backdrop of the ongoing "SignalGate" controversy surrounding several Trump officials who were found to have been communicating on personal devices, some of which were used while travelling abroad. They include high-ranking U.S. officials such as CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and others.

The New York Times also reported this week that Hegseth included sensitive information about the strikes in a Signal group chat he set up that included his wife and brother, which would also violate several rules relating to governmental confidentiality.

By Nazrin Sadigova