Amid the fallout regarding a Signal chat among senior national security officials that inadvertently included The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, tech expert Ken Colburn of Data Doctors says the app is secure for messaging.
“When we say secure, we’re talking about communication between two parties, where the communication is encrypted,” or scrambled, said Colburn. “Somebody that intercepts the message, they can’t really see what’s inside or listen to any conversations.”
Available for iPhone and Android users, the Signal app can be used for direct messaging and group chats, as well as phone and video calls.
Colburn said Signal is considered a much more secure app than WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, which is owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
“The Signal app is part of an open-source community, and it’s owned by a nonprofit,” Colburn said. “It’s absolutely free to its users. Because it’s not profit-motivated, it doesn’t have the incentive that Meta would have from the standpoint of tracking conversations.”
But that doesn’t mean the app couldn’t be hacked.
The U.S. government has more secure methods of transmitting sensitive and classified information. The ongoing investigations focus on the information that was shared, as Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal app, hours before strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.
For a member of the general public, Colburn said “Signal is a great, free, and secure way to communicate, if you have a specific core of people you want to communicate with in a very secure way.”
Even in a secure app, precautions are needed
Colburn said there are settings in the Signal app that prevent the recipients from keeping the message or taking a screenshot, but in a group setting, those security tools don’t exist.
“One of the things you need to understand about the Signal app is that it is tied to your phone number, so for the ultimate in security, it’s advisable to get a virtual number — for instance a Google Voice number — something other than your primary phone number to use in the app, if you’re trying to be fairly anonymous,” Colburn said.
As for the Trump administration’s use of the app to share attack plans, Colburn said “A secure app is only secure if users don’t make mistakes. In this situation, as with most cybersecurity tools, the weakest link is always the human. This is a human error issue that has really nothing to do with the tool.”
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