U.S. intelligence agencies are on high alert after CNN reported that Iran is actively preparing cyberattacks aimed at critical government and military infrastructure. But the real threat may already be inside the wire — not from foreign hackers at a keyboard, but from mobile phones unknowingly or deliberately carried into the nation’s most sensitive facilities.
The devices we carry every day are now among our greatest national security vulnerabilities.
In 2025, secrets aren’t stolen with a crowbar. They’re stolen with an app.
Despite years of post-9/11 investments in hardened infrastructure, the federal government has been remiss in investing in a sensor network to keep pace with the risks of wireless technology now embedded in daily life.
When the first iPhone was introduced in 2007, it ushered in a new era of hyper-connected mobility. Since then, innovation has continued to explode, bringing countless benefits but also exposing serious vulnerabilities.
Our most secure government facilities are wide open to wireless threats.
Today, up to 90% of secure government facilities rely on little more than the honor system and self-reporting to keep unauthorized wireless devices — mobile phones, smartwatches, rogue transmitters — out of sensitive compartmented information facilities, special access program facilities, and other high-security zones. In an era of Pegasus spyware and remote malware, this should be viewed as a national security malpractice.
The modern smartphone is a traitor’s dream — portable, powerful, and everywhere. It records audio and video, it transmits data instantaneously via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks, and it connects to everything — from commercial clouds to encrypted chat apps. And yet these devices are routinely brought into facilities housing classified intelligence data, most often undetected and without consequence.
Take the case of Asif W. Rahman, a former CIA analyst who held a top-secret security clearance and was recently sentenced to three years in federal prison for photographing classified information and transmitting it to unauthorized recipients, who then posted the material to social media. Snapping and sharing photos of classified government documents using a smartphone is stunningly simple, with no high-tech espionage or daring break-ins required.
Every week offers new examples like this. People inside the Department of Defense and State Department have been caught photographing screens, copying documents, and walking classified data right out the door. These are crimes of opportunity, enabled by lax enforcement and outdated security measures.
If a wireless intrusion detection system were in place, the device would have triggered an alert and stopped these breaches before they became major national security failures.
Now, with Iran probing for cyber vulnerabilities, the risk of insiders being exploited or coerced into facilitating digital breaches through personal devices has never been higher. And it can happen without a trace if the right wireless defenses aren’t in place.
In 2023, the secretary of defense issued a memo directing all Defense Department offices to install wireless intrusion detection systems to monitor unauthorized devices. The technology works. It detects any device that emits a wireless signal — such as phones, smartwatches, or even printers with Wi-Fi — inside a restricted area. Yet the directive remains largely unfunded and unenforced.
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Near-peer adversaries, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates are exploiting wireless threats to their advantage. They don’t need sophisticated tradecraft and specialized technologies. They simply need to compromise and leverage someone with access and a phone. And with thousands of secure facilities across the country, that opportunity presents itself every day.
In light of the latest intelligence warnings, we need to fund wireless intrusion detection across all SCIFs and SAPFs and educate agency leaders on the vulnerabilities posed by modern smartphones.
We need to hold bad actors accountable — not retroactively or as part of a congressional committee hearing, but by making sure they never have the opportunity to compromise the integrity of national security in the first place.
The U.S. government has spent billions building concrete walls, locking doors, and implementing network-specific defenses to protect its secrets. But in 2025, secrets aren’t stolen with a crowbar; they’re stolen with an app.
Until we treat the wireless threat with the same seriousness, those secrets will remain just one text message or compromised phone away from unauthorized disclosure of highly classified information.
You can’t protect your most sensitive state secrets if you are blind to the threat. Without action, these vulnerabilities will only grow more dangerous — and more missions and lives may be put at risk.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
Big changes are coming to the U.S. State Department that are sure to eclipse the significance of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's shuttering of the rebranded Global Engagement Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 11 directing agency heads to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" with the ultimate aim of "eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity."
A gang of labor unions, leftist NGOs, and local governments sued to prevent the administration from executing mass layoffs at the department where 93% of all employee political contributions in the 2019-2020 election cycle went to Democratic Party candidates or political action committees.
A Clinton judge, evidently swayed by the liberals' claim that the "president does not possess authority to reorganize, downsize, or otherwise transform the agencies of the federal government, unless and until Congress authorizes such action," blocked Trump's order.
The case, Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees, went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 8-1 in the administration's favor, pausing U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston's injunction.
Now, with the high court's blessing, the State Department is sending well over 1,300 employees packing.
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In a letter to employees obtained by RealClearPolitics Thursday evening, Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said that the department was "communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force" and that once notifications have taken place, "the Department will enter the final stage of its reorganization and focus its attention on delivering results-driven diplomacy."
'It's what all of us want.'
Rigas noted that the objective of the house-cleaning, announced by Rubio in April, was clear from the start: "Focus resources on policy priorities and eliminate redundant functions, empowering our people while increasing accountability."
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce echoed Rigas' suggestion, telling reporters Thursday, "This is about making sure that the State Department is able to operate in a manner that makes it relevant and effective. That is what the American people want. It's what all of us want. And in this dynamic, that’s exactly what we’re achieving."
Documents detailing the department's reorganization plan shared with Congress and obtained by Government Executive in May, indicated that pink slips would go to:
The documents indicated thousands more were leaving voluntarily.
The plans to Congress reportedly indicated that more than 300 of the department's 734 bureaus and offices would be axed, streamlined, or merged.
Blaze News has reached out to the State Department for comment.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told Blaze News, "Under President Trump's leadership, all agencies are being streamlined to ensure more efficient services for the American people. Bloated operations often result in duplicative or even contradictory foreign policy. By reorganizing the Department of State, Secretary Rubio is ensuring that all actions align with the America First agenda that people voted for."
Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, suggested earlier this year that while "painful in places," the State Department's restructuring plan "seems achievable without blunting the effectiveness of American foreign policy."
'Leadership requires hard choices.'
When asked about the layoffs underway and whether the department will retain its effectiveness, Hankinson — who worked for State for over two decades — told Blaze News, "If reports of the scope of the RIF are accurate, I don't think they will undermine the State Department's core mission of carrying out U.S. foreign policy, providing citizen services and passports, issuing visas, and all the department does for Americans."
RELATED: 'Nothing to be proud of': State Department spits on USAID's grave following Bono, Obama eulogies
"How this ends up depends on the tactics — the how, who, and where," said Hankinson. "If they make the right choices to cut offices whose work can be done elsewhere with no loss, but retain the staff with the highest performance, skills, and specialized knowledge, this will save money at no loss to efficiency. The worst result for the American taxpayer would be to see expensive RIFs followed a few years later by expensive new hires to perform vital functions."
The follow-through on these layoffs are a testament to the Trump administration's willingness to make tough decisions, suggested Hankinson, who noted that throughout his 23-year career as a foreign service officer at State, he "never once met an ambassador or senior official who wanted to shrink their staff; they only ever wanted more people and resources."
"Every study or report about State I've read in the last 10 years — with the exception of my own last year —recommends more staff and money, yet they never say where the money comes from," continued Hankinson. "They just say it's a 'priority.' But so is everything. Leadership requires hard choices. The last time we saw cuts to federal agencies on this scale was in the Clinton administration, and since then, the federal budget and entitlements have slowly grown."
Hankinson noted that with spiraling federal debt, "Every part of our government is going to have to be reduced, reorganized, and made more efficient, sooner or later."
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President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly battling impersonation campaigns amid warnings that artificial intelligence-powered security threats are becoming increasingly more common.
An unknown culprit reportedly used AI to imitate Secretary of State Marco Rubio's voice to contact top officials, according to a July 3 cable from the State Department obtained by the Washington Post.
'The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal.'
The individual reportedly used text messaging and Signal to contact "at least five non-Department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a U.S. member of Congress."
The imposter apparently began the scheme in mid-June, creating a Signal account with the display name "Marco.Rubio@state.gov," which is not Rubio's official email address.
"The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal," the agency's cable read.
The State Department speculated that the culprit was likely attempting to manipulate the officials "with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts."
The department's correspondence did not reveal the names of the officials whom the imposter contacted, the contents of the messages, or whether those officials responded.
RELATED: Deep-staters threaten to use color revolution tactics against Trump admin: Report
Bad actors also impersonated other State Department personnel, according to the federal agency.
The State Department told the Post that it would "carry out a thorough investigation and continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future."
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is investigating the incident. The State Department urged U.S. diplomats to report any impersonation attempts to the bureau, while non-State Department personnel should alert the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.
This is not the first time that the Trump administration has faced impersonation attempts.
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In May, a fraudster reportedly breached the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The culprit impersonated Wiles while making calls and sending messages to senators, governors, and business executives.
Around the same time, the FBI issued a public service announcement warning that "malicious actors" had been impersonating U.S. officials since April, sending text messages and AI-generated voice messages to gain access to personal accounts.
"One way the actors gain such access is by sending targeted individuals a malicious link under the guise of transitioning to a separate messaging platform. Access to personal or official accounts operated by U.S. officials could be used to target other government officials, or their associates and contacts, by using trusted contact information they obtain," the FBI's alert read.
The FBI declined a request for comment from the Post.
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Despite delays in mass layoffs ordered by a Clinton judge, the Trump administration has already managed some significant housecleaning at the U.S. State Department.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has, for instance, fired scores of contractors who supposedly worked abroad building up civil society and democratic practices, and shuttered the rebrand of both the censorious Global Engagement Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
These actions, coupled with Rubio's plan to can thousands of State Department employees, have enraged all the right people — including the Democratic lawmakers in Congress who claimed in a June 27 letter that large-scale reductions in force of America's diplomatic workforce would "leave the U.S. with limited tools to engage as a leader on the world stage during this critical juncture."
It appears that the changes have angered bad actors besides those in Congress — some of whom intend to respond with something more serious than sternly written letters.
'They've done a very foolish thing.'
A number of anonymous former USAID and State Department officials recently told the Allbritton Journalism Institute's publication NOTUS about their plans to undermine the Trump administration.
While it largely sounds like a revival of the "resistance" that undermined the first Trump administration, this group of would-be saboteurs appears keen on using nation-destabilizing tactics practiced abroad on their own government.
RELATED: 'Nothing to be proud of': State Department spits on USAID's grave following Bono, Obama eulogies
According to NOTUS, some jilted establishmentarians who were previously "stationed across the globe actively supporting opposition movements in autocratic nations" are now building a network of federal workers who are "willing to engage in even minor acts of rebellion in the office" — what BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre and other critics have alternatively characterized as "treason."
"They were so quick to disband AID, the group that supposedly instigates color revolutions," a currently employed federal official told NOTUS. "But they've done a very foolish thing. You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population. If you kept our offices going and had us play solitaire in the office, it might have been safer to keep your regime."
Color revolutions — such as the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan — are political upheavals aimed at toppling supposedly illegitimate or abusive regimes and replacing them with supposedly liberal democratic regimes.
Blaze News previously highlighted that in many cases, color revolutionaries were afforded help and direction by state actors and/or by nongovernmental organizations.
The Washington Post's David Ignatius described such efforts plainly in a 1991 column about successful efforts undertaken at the time in Russia, noting that instead of engaging in Cold War-style covert operations, overt operatives "have been doing in public what the CIA used to do in private — providing money and moral support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist rule."
Although the current Republican administration was given a clear mandate by the American people to rule, it may have repeated the error made by other sovereign governments targeted by color revolutions: Its agenda is not aligned with that of a clique of unelected bureaucrats in the District of Columbia.
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Those now plotting against the American government were once paid by the federal government to push Latin American militants to overthrow supposed dictators and to support African secessionist movements. They also apparently helped kick off "an ultimately successful uprising in the Middle East," according to the NOTUS report.
It's unclear whether that "successful" Middle Eastern uprising is the same one that resulted in both a civil war that claimed the lives of over 600,000 people and Islamic terrorists running Syria.
'Today it starts with four, but tomorrow it's 10.'
Former State Department officials told NOTUS that they are holding "noncooperation" training sessions, attempting to set the stage for a nationwide general strike, and circulating copies of the CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual, which notes that "acts of simple sabotage, multiplied by thousands of citizen-saboteurs, can be an effective weapon against the enemy" and will "demoralize enemy administrators."
The manual provides tips for interfering with organizations and productions, such as bringing up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible; haggling over the precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions; advocating caution and generally slowing down processes by any means; demanding written orders; deliberately misunderstanding orders; waiting until current stocks of necessary materials are exhausted before ordering new materials; giving incomplete or misleading instructions to new workers; and holding "conferences when there is more critical work to be done."
Rosarie Tucci, the former deputy assistant administrator of the now extinct USAID Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization, is apparently operating "in this space," co-leading a group called DemocracyAID with fellow USAID alumna Denielle Reiff. Their group is reportedly running workshops with those still employed by the federal government.
"The whole point of it is to start off slow," Tucci told NOTUS. "You're building up that muscle and that bravery, and you're building up your numbers. Today it starts with four, but tomorrow it's 10. We're helping them understand that is the organizing, and that is the process to get to a massive strike."
Blaze News has reached out to the State Department for comment.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to Blaze News, "It is inherently undemocratic for unelected bureaucrats to undermine the duly elected President of the United States and the agenda he was given a mandate to implement."
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Bono, the Irish singer valued at around $700 million whose real name is Paul David Hewson, did his apparent best on the May 30 episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" to push the narrative that the Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development would result in the deaths of multitudes of foreigners.
Rogan didn't buy what Bono was selling, noting, "For sure, it was a money-laundering operation. For sure, there was no oversight. For sure, billions of dollars are missing."
Just as the Irishman's fearmongering fell flat on the podcast, similar efforts by Bill Gates and other super-wealthy individuals apparently keen to keep American taxpayers running funds through their organizations and on the hook for wasteful foreign projects failed to achieve their desired effect.
'The amount of USAID dollars going to local partners increased only from 4% to 6%.'
The USAID was officially shuttered on Tuesday, just weeks after the State Department took over its foreign assistance programs.
Responding to the eulogies offered up for USAID during a video conference on Monday by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, as well as by Bono, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce made abundantly clear that tears shed for the agency are wasted on what was a bloated and ineffective bureaucracy.
To drive home her point, Bruce damned the former agency with some admissions from its former administrator and longtime champion, Samantha Power.
"Samantha Power, the last USAID director under the last administration at the end of 2024, complained in public statements that when she started only 7 percent of aid money that was assigned to various projects and groups made it to its intended destination, and that’s because of bureaucracy and layers of contractors," said Bruce. "And she was proud that she got it up to 10 percent."
Power noted in a 2021 speech, "In the last decade, despite numerous efforts, initiatives, and even support from Capitol Hill, the amount of USAID dollars going to local partners increased only from 4% to 6%."
She suggested that cash was instead poured into big, remote NGOs "because working with local partners, it turns out, is more difficult, time-consuming, and it's riskier," adding that local partners "often lack the internal accounting expertise our contracts require."
USAID funds are instead gobbled up by "implementing partners," such as private contractors, government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations. The Congressional Research Service noted:
Few foreign governments receive direct budget support, and some foreign assistance dollars never leave the United States at all — instead going to a U.S. business for the end benefit of a foreign population. Money goes to U.S. farmers, defense contractors, and management consultants, among others, for commodities or services provided to benefit foreign populations.
In 2021, Power set a target for the agency: By 2025, 25% of USAID funding would go directly to the intended destinations to support the efforts of locally led organizations. The Democratic former adviser to Obama failed miserably.
According to Devex, the percentage of eligible funding that went to local organizations went from 10.2% in 2022 to 9.6% the following year.
'We are not ending foreign aid. We are making it more nimble.'
"Less than 10% of our foreign assistance dollars flowing through USAID is actually reaching those communities," Walter Kerr, co-founding executive director of Unlock Aid, told PBS earlier this year. "About 98% of USAID grants pay for activities and not results."
"Forty-three percent of [the activities] failed to achieve about half of the intended results. But in spite of that, they still got paid in full almost every time and sometimes more," added Kerr.
Kerr indicated that working with local partners could prove far more effective.
"One study found that, when working with a local partner, as opposed to an international aid contractor, you could find savings upwards of 32% alone. And that's a conservative estimate," said Kerr.
RELATED: Pentagon spox responds to Blaze News reporter on Ukraine saying aid reduction will embolden Russia
Bruce noted that within the Trump administration's new foreign aid framework, bureaus will be assigned to various regions around the globe.
"That foreign assistance for that region will now sit with the bureau assigned to that region as opposed to some massive bureaucracy, not even housed in our building, dealing with countries and regions separately without dealing with the experts here who understand what those regions might need," said Bruce. "It will be more efficient. It will be more effective. We are not ending foreign aid. We are making it more nimble."
'This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end.'
Obama, among those evidently happy to pretend USAID was worth its salt, said in a video excerpt obtained by the Associated Press on Monday, "Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it's a tragedy. Because it's some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world."
Bono reportedly read a poem, repeated his suggestion that millions will now die without USAID, then told agency workers, "They called you crooks. When you were the best of us."
Bruce countered in her Wednesday press conference by stating that "there is nothing to be proud of when 90%, according to Samantha Power, is not even making it to the people to whom it was promised."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a July 1 article on his department's Substack page, "Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown. On the global stage, the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate."
"This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end," continued Rubio. "Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests."
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