We're on week two of the fallout from the Signal group chat scandal and apparently, there's a lot more where that came from.Reporters at Germany'sDer Spiegel have, as the newspaper reported, uncovered private contact information for defense secretary Pete Hegseth, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Donald Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz the same guy who added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to that damningly insecure groupchat where plans to bomb Yemen were discussed.ThoughSpiegel newspaper didn't publish any of the information, its reporting indicates that their phone numbers, emails, and even some of their passwords were pretty easy to find. And they didn't have to go particularly deep, either:the reporters used a popular "people search" engine they didn't identify which, but PeopleFinders.com is a big name in that shady game and leaked password databases.As the paper notes, Hegseth's data was by far the easiest to access, though Waltz was apparently an easy second. After engaging the people search site, the reporters were sent cell phone numbers and email addresses for the two officials, and cross-references on leaked file databases revealed that both of their passwords had been exposed repeatedly in hacks that were later made public.The reporters were also able to connect the phone number provided for Hegseth they were provided to a WhatsApp account. Though it had recently been deleted, a profile photo wasstill visible, and it showed a shirtless man that is almost certainly the defense secretary.Though Gabbard's information was more locked down than her colleagues,Spiegel was still able to find her email address on WikiLeaks and Reddit. That same address was contained in at least ten leaked data caches that also included a partial telephone number purportedly linked to a WhatsApp and Signal account for the director of national intelligence.Representatives for both Waltz and Gabbard told Spiegel that the information contained in the leaked databases was old and didn't reflect any of their active accounts. When reporters attempted to contact the officials on the messaging apps, however, confirmation functions showed that the missives had been delivered suggesting at very least that the accounts associated with their alleged phone numbers were still active. The Pentagon did not, the paper noted, respond to any requests for comment.On one level, this story is a chilling reminder of how easy it is to get anyone's information with a bit of money and elbow grease. If overseas reporters were so readily able to access the emails, phone numbers, and passwords of the highest-ranking American national security officials, how easy must it be to find out private information about regular people?On another, however, it underscores the resounding sense that of all the people, members of the national security council including the one who oversees all of our spies should know better. Did they not conduct a thorough sweep of leaked data before entering office? Is the entire US defense and intelligence apparatus not a match for sketchy data broker sites? Has anyone else gotten this information or worse, used it?"Their personal phones are all hackable," one former White House official told Politico of the debacle. "Its highly likely foreign intelligence services are sitting on their phones watching them type the shit out."Thus far, there hasn't been any public response from the Trump administration about this latest egregious security hole discovered by gumshoe reporters. Given the nothingburger response to the Signal story, however, we don't expect there to be any accountability.More on the groupchat heard 'round the world: Before He Sent War Plans in a Non-Secure Groupchat, the Head of the Pentagon Said People Who Did That Should Be FiredShare This Article