Overview
- Portugal’s SIS issued a rare alert about a global campaign targeting officials, diplomats, military personnel and civil-society members, cautioning that this does not necessarily indicate a breach of Signal or WhatsApp.
- Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD describe a large-scale, global effort linked to Russian state actors, with victims confirmed to include Dutch government employees.
- Signal says attackers took over accounts by duping users into sharing SMS verification codes and PINs, confirms its encryption and infrastructure are intact, and is adding in-app warnings about phishing.
- On WhatsApp, investigators highlight abuse of the linked-devices feature, where malicious QR codes or links can pair an attacker’s device and expose conversations.
- Agencies and vendors advise never sharing verification codes or PINs, treating any in-app “support” messages as suspicious, and reviewing linked devices to remove unknown sessions.