Venmo Information of U.S. Officials Laid Bare in Recent Tech Security Incident

In another setback for the Trump administration’s digital security measures, information from the Venmo accounts of various U.S. officials has been found publicly available on the internet. This includes address books and, in certain instances, transaction records. The breach comes on the heels of a series of recent cybersecurity issues affecting high-ranking government figures.

Earlier this week, the “Signalgate” affair uncovered that personal contact details and even passwords of officials had been leaked online. Now, new findings from WIRED indicate that Venmo accounts associated with multiple officials from the Trump era were made publicly accessible, revealing sensitive personal connections and financial activities.

Among those named are Dan Katz, Chief of Staff at the Department of Treasury; Mike Needham, Counselor and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State; and Joe Kent, Trump’s candidate for Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Also mentioned are Brian McCormack of the National Security Council and Morgan Ortagus, deputy to Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East. All are confirmed or suspected members of a contentious Signal group chat where officials allegedly discussed military strategies regarding Yemen.

WIRED’s probe uncovered that while all these individuals had public contact lists on Venmo, Katz, McCormack, and Ortagus had additionally left their transaction records accessible. These logs, while appearing trivial, could be exploited to outline personal networks or sway officials via their contacts. For instance, Kent’s payment history included a transaction to a recognized far-right conspiracy theorist involved in misinformation surrounding the 2020 election.

The incident is especially concerning given that similar advisories had previously been issued. In July 2023, WIRED revealed that JD Vance, then a vice-presidential candidate and Signal chat member, had also kept his Venmo friends list public. In spite of this, some officials only opted to make their accounts private after inquiries from journalists.

A Venmo representative responded to the findings, stating: “We take our customers’ privacy very seriously, which is why we allow customers to select their privacy settings on Venmo for both their individual payments and friends lists — and we make it exceedingly straightforward for customers to choose to keep these private if they wish to do so.”

This recent occurrence contributes to an escalating list of digital blunders. On Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was inadvertently included in a Signal group chat where officials seemed to share classified information. Days later, the German outlet DER SPIEGEL reported that passwords belonging to some of the same officials were discovered online, heightening fears that foreign intelligence agencies may have infiltrated the chat.

With these continual oversights, it’s becoming increasingly evident that many within the Trump administration lacked fundamental cybersecurity insight. As the tally of breaches increases, so does the demand for compulsory digital security training for government officials.