Key Points:
- State-backed hackers launched a global campaign targeting secure messaging apps.
- The attackers focus on government officials, military staff, and diplomats.
- Hackers trick users into handing over passwords and sensitive data.
- Portugal’s intelligence agency issued a rare public warning about the threat.
Portugal’s national intelligence service, known as SIS, issued a rare public warning on Wednesday. The agency revealed that foreign state-backed hackers recently launched a massive global cyber campaign. These attackers specifically target the private WhatsApp and Signal accounts of high-ranking individuals around the world.
The hackers focus their efforts heavily on government officials, military personnel, and senior diplomats. They also target civil society members who hold privileged information. The threat extends far beyond Portugal, putting leaders and decision-makers in multiple allied nations at serious risk.
To break into these accounts, the hackers rely almost entirely on deception. They trick users into handing over their passwords and other sensitive personal details. Once the hackers gain entry, they can freely read private individual messages, scroll through secure group chats, and steal confidential shared files.
Many government officials rely heavily on the end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp and Signal provide. However, the intelligence agency noted that hackers easily bypass this security by exploiting the careless habits of everyday users. SIS clarified that the attacks do not automatically mean hackers broke the apps’ core security systems, though they refuse to rule out the possibility entirely.
This urgent warning aligns perfectly with recent reports from other European countries. Just two days earlier, two different intelligence agencies in the Netherlands sounded a very similar alarm. The Dutch officials explicitly stated that Russian-backed hackers orchestrated a widespread global campaign to break into these exact same messaging platforms.
By releasing this information, the Portuguese intelligence service hopes to raise overall awareness across the continent. Officials desperately want to help the general public and high-profile targets prepare for future cyberattacks. Security experts urge everyone using these apps to stay fully alert, ignore suspicious messages, and vigorously protect their login credentials from prying eyes.
