Oops, Wrong Group Chat: Why Off-Channel Comms Are a Real Risk for You and Your Company

If national security officials can mess this up, so can your team

A Signal group chat to coordinate military action — complete with fist-bumps and fire emojis? Sounds like the start of a bad joke — but it actually happened and is dominating global news.  

According to a story in The Atlantic detailing the breach and providing screenshots of the texts, President Trump’s top national security advisers and the vice president used an off-the-record Signal chat to discuss potential airstrikes in Yemen.

One small problem: They also added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the discussion — apparently unintentionally —  and didn’t notice he was there. The group included the vice president, the national security advisor, the CIA director, the secretary of state, and six other high-ranking officials. Imagine being the journalist who gets pinged with breaking war news — before it hits CNN.

The breach occurred on a commercial platform that is not approved for discussion of classified information, with messages set to disappear within days — a practice that runs contrary to Department of Defense policies, the Federal Records Act, and other laws. At least one U.S. senator has called for the firings of all 11 on the Signal thread.

Beyond the political circus, there’s a major lesson here: Off-channel comms are risky business. If this can happen at the highest levels of government, it can happen inside your company.

Why It Matters for Business Leaders

Whether it’s Signal, WhatsApp, or a Slack channel, going off-channel means:

• No audit trail = no accountability.

• No oversight = no way to catch harmful language.

• No process = real risk for legal, regulatory, and reputational fallout.

  
  

We’ve seen this in finance, healthcare, media, and tech. Traders texting on private apps. Execs making hiring decisions in disappearing chats. The intention isn’t always bad — but the impact can be.

How to Keep Your Company from Going Off-Channel

Here’s how to keep your team from making Signal-sized mistakes:

• Train teams on what belongs where — and why it matters.

• Use tools like HarmCheck to flag risky or non-compliant messages before they’re sent.

• Audit your communication patterns. You can’t fix what you can’t see.

From Signal to Subpoena

Here’s the part that most people overlook: Consider how your text or email would be perceived as front-page news or on a screen in a packed courtroom. In the Signal group chat discussing the military operations in Yemen, U.S. officials used several emojis to express their reactions. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz described the operation as an "amazing job" and followed his message with three emojis: a fist, an American flag, and a fire symbol. Additionally, a user believed to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his team, while another participant, presumed to be Steve Witkoff, responded with five emojis: two praying hands, a flexed bicep, and two American flags.

Final Words

If the United States’ top security officials can accidentally alert a journalist to military strikes via group chat, your team can slip up, too. The key isn’t just what you're saying — it’s where you say it. And when it hits the fan, “Oops, wrong thread” won’t pass as a credible defense.

Written by the Alphy staff. 

HarmCheck by Alphy is an AI communication compliance solution that detects and flags language that is harmful, unlawful, and unethical in digital communication. Alphy was founded to reduce the risk of litigation from harmful and discriminatory communication while helping employees communicate more effectively. For more information: www.harmcheck.ai  To book a demo: sales@harmcheck.ai