I just hope he wasn't set up. Trump would have asked the right people the right questions and have them find the honest answers.
In cybersecurity—and in many areas of national security—we use a principle called
“defense in depth.
” It means layering security controls so that even if one layer is breached, others remain to protect critical assets. You secure your network perimeter, then your internal systems, and finally your data—each layer requiring its own controls, like multi-factor authentication and role-based access.
This layered approach is designed to prevent exactly the kind of breach we’re now seeing. Unfortunately,
people are often the weakest link in any security setup. If personnel are careless or untrained—or worse, if they disregard or actively undermine protocols—then no system, no matter how sophisticated, can withstand that kind of internal threat.
What’s troubling here isn’t just a mistake. If someone with access to a secure comms channel (like Signal, in this case) intentionally or even inadvertently invited an unauthorized person—especially a member of the media—into a group where sensitive operational discussions were happening, that’s a serious breach of trust and protocol. It doesn’t matter if classified details were shared or not. The issue is the violation of security practices designed to protect not just individuals, but national interests.
We saw something similar in the NFL Draft recently, when a coach’s son got ahold of a team-issued tablet and prank-called a player using sensitive info. It was written off as a joke, but it demonstrated just how easily a failure to control access can cause harm.
What happened here with Hegseth, or whoever facilitated that invite, reflects an even deeper issue—
an attitude of entitlement or negligence by people who haven’t had to earn their positions through cybersecurity training or an understanding of the responsibilities those roles demand.
This isn’t just about the Houthis or a single chat thread. It’s about the larger principle:
If you’re entrusted with secure communications and privileged access, you cannot treat that trust casually.
www.theguardian.com
