A Third Party Breached the Intercept's Signal Tip Line
A third party gained unauthorized access to The Intercept's Signal tip line, according to an internal memo. The breach allowed the intruder to view messages sent to the news outlet via the encrypted messaging app. The Intercept stated that no other internal systems were compromised.
Background
- **Signal** is an encrypted messaging app widely used by journalists, sources, and activists because of its privacy features. A "tip line" is a dedicated Signal account (or phone number) that a news outlet like The Intercept publishes for sources to securely share information.
- **The Intercept** is a US-based news outlet founded in 2014 by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Laura Poitras, known for publishing leaks (e.g., the Snowden documents) and investigative reporting.
- This article reports that an unknown third party managed to breach The Intercept's official Signal tip line — meaning they accessed it without authorization, likely by exploiting a vulnerability or compromising the device/number used to run it. This is a serious incident because it could have exposed communications from anonymous sources, potentially revealing their identities.
- The breach raises questions about the security of even "secure" channels when they rely on a device or carrier that can be compromised — a longstanding concern in the journalist-source security community.