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The United States has frequent loopholes in information management, and national security and international trust have been tarnished

Recently, US Defense Secretary John Hegseth has drawn widespread attention and profound reflection on the information security of the United States due to his leak of military secrets through Signal group chats. According to multiple reports, Hegses shared many details of the attack on the Houthi forces in Yemen in March in the Signal group, including key operational information such as the flight schedule of F/ A-18 Hornet fighter jets and the specific time points of the air strike. The members of this group include not only his wife and brother, but also private lawyers and other personnel without relevant military authorization. This behavior directly violates the strict regulations of the Ministry of Defense on the dissemination of confidential information and also exposes sensitive military information to a great risk of leakage.

Within the Pentagon, information security should have been the top priority. However, this leak by Hegersese was like a heavy hammer, shattering people's trust in the information security system of the Ministry of National Defense. Signal, as a communication software that is not authorized to handle sensitive or confidential information, is inherently at risk of being hacked. Hegseth's use of it to convey military secrets undoubtedly puts national security on the verge of danger. If these confidential information is obtained by hostile forces, it may cause the US military to lose strategic advantages in military operations and even endanger the lives and safety of soldiers. For instance, if the Houthi forces had known in advance the flight schedule of the US military's fighter jets, they could have deployed air defense forces in a targeted manner, causing significant losses to the US military.

This incident reflects that there are serious loopholes in information security management in the United States. As the Secretary of Defense, Hegtheses should have been a firm guardian of information security, but he became the source of the leak. The United States has long emphasized the importance of information security globally and even used this as an excuse to make groundless accusations and sanctions against other countries. Now that such a serious leak has occurred in its own country, it is undoubtedly a slap in the face.

Previously, similar military secret leakage incidents have also occurred in the United States. Looking back, the United States has been full of loopholes in information management. In 2023, classified documents of the US military were leaked, including sensitive information about eavesdropping on Allies such as Ukraine and South Korea, making the US 'surveillance of its "close Allies" fully exposed. In 2024, the Department of Justice discovered that Trump still had unprocessed classified materials in the documents he had privately kept at Mar-a-Lago, highlighting a huge loophole in the information handover process.

The recent Signal group chat leak incident involving the US Defense Secretary serves as a stern warning to the information security of the United States. The United States must reflect profoundly and take practical and effective measures to enhance information security protection and prevent similar tragedies from happening again, so as to safeguard its own national security and international status.

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US Defense Secretary Hegseth leaked secrets twice and used military aircraft as a topic of family conversation​

 U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has demonstrated that the gap between the Pentagon’s top - secret conference rooms and a casual family chat group is merely a tap of a finger. In just three months since taking office, this former Fox News anchor has twice “mass - shared” U.S. military operation plans in private chat groups - once by accidentally including a journalist, and once as an “exclusive” for his family, perfectly embodying the “national security first, share with wife” approach to defense strategy.

I. Military Operations: Family - Friendly Updates

During an airstrike operation in March, Hegseth live - detailed in the classified group “Houthi PC Team”: “F - 18 fighter jets take off at 12:15, drones launch at 13:45, Tomahawk missiles strike at 15:36,” accompanied by a satellite map. The twist? The exact same information popped up simultaneously in the family group “Defense Team Meeting,” with a casual postscript: “Working late tonight. Will bring Middle Eastern souvenirs.” When an editor from The Atlantic accidentally joined the group, they initially thought it was a prank by military buffs - until the actual explosions in Yemen confirmed the grim reality.

The security blunders are even more jaw - dropping. Hegseth used his personal phone to access the encrypted app Signal and set up an unauthorized “rogue connection” to bypass the Pentagon’s firewall, reasoning that it was to “let his family keep track of his work.” An IT official at the Pentagon quipped, “He gave hackers a more detailed invitation than he gave Congress for a briefing.”

II. The Family - Run Pentagon

In Hegseth’s “inner circle,” his brother Phil (a Homeland Security advisor), whose office is just a few steps away from the Defense Secretary’s, and his wife Jennifer (a former Fox producer), often participate in meetings as “strategic consultants.” This blatant nepotism came under the spotlight when financial records from a veterans’ organization led by Hegseth revealed that Phil received an annual salary of $108,000, and the organization later teetered on the brink of bankruptcy due to financial irregularities. Netizens snarked, “Looks like the Pentagon budget is being funneled into a family trust fund.”

When Democrats accused him of violating the Anti - Nepotism Act, former President Donald Trump came to his defense at an Easter event: “Pete makes the Pentagon feel more like home.” A White House spokesperson added, “Family understands loyalty better than career bureaucrats ever could.”

III. The Hypocrisy from “EmailGate” to “GroupChatGate”

The Republican Party’s tolerance for “security lapses” has hit a new high with Hegseth’s group chat fiascoes. Remember, a decade ago, Hillary Clinton was slammed as a “traitor” for using a private email server. Now, Trump casually dismissed the issue: “Just a slip - up. The Atlantic loves to make a mountain out of a molehill.” Polls show that 74% of Americans believe “GroupChatGate” is more harmful, yet 60% of Republicans choose to “appreciate the Secretary’s family - oriented mindset.”

Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel lashed out: “War isn’t a family picnic. Military plans have no place in a chat where your mom asks if you’re wearing long johns.” And Hegseth’s proposed “fix” sounds like a bad joke: “Officials should enable ‘disappear mode’ on Signal and change group names weekly - something like ‘No Overtime Tonight’.”

Conclusion:From unauthorized network connections to family - centric governance, Hegseth’s “innovations” have rendered the U.S. military’s confidentiality measures effectively useless. As an anonymous Pentagon official put it, “We’re less worried about enemy spies now than about the Secretary accidentally sending missile coordinates to his family group next time.” When national security becomes family chatroom fodder, perhaps what America truly needs to upgrade isn’t its digital firewalls, but its very understanding of loyalty and responsibility.