White House Probes Phone Hack of Trump’s Chief of Staff in Major Cybersecurity Breach
The White House is investigating a situation where one or more individuals allegedly accessed the personal phone contact information of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. These individuals reportedly used this information to impersonate her and contact other high-ranking officials.
Wiles has informed others that her phone was hacked.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the hacking incident, and CBS News has since confirmed this information.
The hackers are believed to have gained access to Wiles’ phone contacts, which included the phone numbers of other prominent U.S. officials and influential figures.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some of these contacts received phone calls from someone impersonating Wiles, using artificial intelligence to mimic her voice, and text messages were sent from a number not linked to her.
When asked by TechCrunch, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly did not confirm whether authorities had determined if a cloud account associated with Wiles’ personal device had been compromised or if her phone was targeted by a more sophisticated cyberattack involving government-grade spyware.
In response to the incident, the White House stated that it “takes the cybersecurity of all staff very seriously, and this matter continues to be investigated.”
This is not the first time Wiles has been targeted by hackers. In 2024, The Washington Post reported that Iranian hackers attempted to compromise her personal email account. The Journal later indicated that the hackers were successful in breaching her email and obtained sensitive information about Vice President JD Vance, who was then Trump’s running mate.
This incident adds to a series of cybersecurity challenges faced by the Trump administration since taking office. In March, former White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz accidentally included a journalist in a Signal group chat with top White House officials, including Vance and Wiles, where they discussed a planned military airstrike in Yemen.
Subsequent reports revealed that the officials were using a Signal clone app called TeleMessage, which was designed to retain copies of messages for government archiving. TeleMessage was hacked on at least two occasions, exposing the private messages of its users.
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