"We're still dealing with the fallout," said one former official. "Dozens of people around the world were killed because of this."



According to the sources, the online platform was initilly employed in the Middle East to allow communication with soldiers in war zones. It was later adopted by intelligence agents, despite its flaws.



It is reported that Iran began uncovering the flaw when it began rooting out spies in response to the Obama administrations discovery of a secret weapons factory.

US officials say that Iranian agents were able to use popular search engine Google to find secret CIA websites. This allowed Tehran to infiltrate the spy network by 2011, when in May of that year it announced that it had busted a network of 30 US agents.



The discovery led to the execution and imprisonment of several of the informants, according to the sources.