Russian cybercrims phish their way into officials' Signal and WhatsApp accounts
Dutch spies flag large-scale campaign to hijack secure messaging accounts
Russian-linked hackers are trying to break into the Signal and WhatsApp accounts of government officials, journalists, and military personnel globally – not by cracking encryption, but by simply tricking people into handing over the keys.
That’s the warning issued Monday by the Netherlands’ intelligence and military security agencies, the AIVD and MIVD, which say a “large-scale” Russian cyber campaign is actively targeting Signal and WhatsApp accounts. The goal isn’t to defeat the apps’ end-to-end encryption, but to take over the accounts themselves and quietly read whatever conversations are inside.
According to the agencies, the attackers approach targets directly via chats and persuade them to share security verification codes or PINs, effectively giving the intruders full access to the account. In some cases, the attackers reportedly impersonate a Signal support bot to make the request look legitimate. Once the code is shared, attackers can log in and read messages or monitor group chats without needing to defeat the underlying encryption.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance