The White House is conducting an investigation following reports that an individual or individuals accessed the contacts from the personal phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. This information was allegedly used to contact other top officials and impersonate her.
Wiles reportedly informed others that her phone had been hacked. The Wall Street Journal initially reported this incident, which was later confirmed by CBS News.
The hackers are believed to have accessed Wiles’ phone contacts, which included numbers of other high-ranking U.S. officials and influential figures. According to the Wall Street Journal, those contacted received phone calls that used AI to mimic Wiles’ voice and received text messages from a number not attributed to her.
Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the White House, declined to confirm to TechCrunch whether a cloud account linked to Wiles’ personal device was compromised or if the phone fell victim to a more sophisticated cyberattack, potentially involving government-grade spyware.
The White House has stated its commitment to the cybersecurity of all staff, emphasizing that the investigation is ongoing.
This marks the second time Wiles has been targeted by hackers. In 2024, the Washington Post reported that Iranian hackers attempted to breach Wiles’ personal email account. The Journal later noted that these hackers successfully accessed her email and acquired a dossier on Vice President JD Vance, who was then Trump’s running mate.
This incident adds to a series of cybersecurity issues faced by the Trump administration since taking office.
In March, former White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz mistakenly included a journalist in a Signal group of high-level White House officials, where military plans for an airstrike in Yemen were discussed.
Subsequent reports disclosed that the officials used a Signal clone app called TeleMessage, intended for government message archiving. TeleMessage was later hacked on at least two occasions, exposing users’ private messages.
