Bad cybersecurity by Secret Service agents put US officials at risk, inspector general says

By Sean Lyngaas, Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — Bad cybersecurity practices from Secret Service agents have left their phones vulnerable to hacking and risked the lives of senior US officials they are charged with protecting, according to a new inspector general report.

Foreign “adversaries” — a term that can encompass spies and terrorists — “could have intercepted and exploited Secret Service information, placing at risk our Nation’s leaders, other protectees, and employees,” said the report released Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general (IG).

The findings revive longstanding concerns about security practices at the Secret Service two years after the near-assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, when insecure and faulty communications led to one of the biggest debacles in the agency’s recent history.

A big part of the problem is that Secret Service employes have frequently used their less-secure personal phones rather than their government phones while on protective missions, the new IG report found. Someone who hacks an agent’s personal phone could steal “mission-related data, including contacts, user history, geolocation, and photos” and then use that sensitive information to “plan attacks against protectees or Secret Service employees,” the inspector general concluded.

The probe also found that the Secret Service was failing to wipe employees’ phones after returning from international travel, and that the agency didn’t have a policy for testing software before it was deployed on employees’ phones.

For years, Secret Service agents have complained that their government phones didn’t allow them to use certain apps to communicate with their foreign counterparts or to send certain types of text messages between themselves. Shortly before the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, a Secret Service employee “used their personal device to receive a picture message from local law enforcement of the would-be assassin due to reliability concerns” with their government phone, the new report says.

At the time of the assassination attempt, the US had intelligence about a separate plot by Iran to assassinate Trump. Iran has a history of using hacking to aid in its assassination and kidnapping attempts.

Cell phone issues plagued security during the Butler rally, where the would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was able to fly a drone mapping out the area undetected and climb onto a nearby rooftop with a rifle despite being seen by local law enforcement minutes before he opened fire.

While certain Secret Service agents and local officers depended on small group chats on their phone to send out information that day, others relied on radio channels and two separate command posts.

According to multiple reports from the Department of Homeland Security and Congress, failures related to the Service’s use of phones greatly contributed to the failures that day.

The lack of cell service in the rural location of the rally also delayed counter-drone technology that could have located Crooks’ drone, and Crooks himself, hours before the shooting.

The agency has since begun to deploy mobile cell coverage for agents during such events.

Improvements have been made, Secret Service says

The Secret Service said in a response to draft of the IG report that it had addressed, or was in the process of addressing, the watchdog’s security recommendations.

The agency has made “several comprehensive enhancements to Secret Service communications policies and protocols to both mitigate the potential for adversaries to intercept and exploit Seret Service information, as well as further strengthen the protective environment,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said.

The Secret Service declined to comment on the findings, instead pointing CNN to Curran’s letter in the IG report.

The Secret Service manages about 8,000 mobile devices that grant access to the agency’s systems and to sensitive apps, like one that gives agents information on emergency relocation sties, the inspector general said.

The risk of a hack of a government phone leading to assassinations is not hypothetical.

A Mexican drug cartel hired a hacker to surveil the movements of a senior FBI official in Mexico City in 2018 or earlier, gathering information from the city’s camera system that allowed the cartel to kill potential FBI informants, the Justice Department inspector general said in a report last year.

The new report on the Secret Service cited that example.

“Until the Secret Service improves security controls for mobile devices used overseas, employees’ sensitive device information and communication with protectees face similar risks,” the report said.

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