German prosecutors Friday launched a spying investigation into phishing attacks targeting lawmakers on the Signal messaging app, with an MP saying the latest Russia-directed plot against Germany was a “wake-up call”.<\/p>\n
The wave of attacks has allegedly been directed at MPs from several parties including the speaker of parliament, a senior member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU party, as well as civil servants, diplomats and journalists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Germany, Kyiv’s biggest provider of miliary aid, has been battling a surge of cyberattacks, as well as espionage and sabotage plots since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moscow denies being behind any such actions.<\/p>\n
The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office told AFP it had launched an investigation into the phishing attacks “based on an initial suspicion of espionage”.<\/p>\n
It did not name Russia or give more details, but suspicion quickly fell on Moscow.<\/p>\n
“The latest phishing attempt from Russia targeting German politicians and journalists is a wake-up call for all of us,” said Marc Heinrichmann, a CDU lawmaker who heads a committee overseeing the country’s intelligence services.<\/p>\n
The attack makes “painfully clear” that everyone “must remain vigilant,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“What may seem like a harmless message at first glance could, in today’s world, be a targeted espionage attempt by foreign powers.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
– ‘Extremely worrying’ –<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The attacks work by sending messages purporting to come from Signal support.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victims are urged to hand over sensitive account information, which the attackers can then use to gain access to the victim’s chat groups and messages.<\/p>\n
When the scam is successful, the hackers gain access to photos and files shared on Signal and can also impersonate the person whose account was compromised.<\/p>\n
Many have moved from WhatsApp to the non-profit Signal in recent years because of privacy concerns after WhatsApp said it would share some metadata with parent company Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n
German and foreign security services have been warning for months about the attacks, but the potential fallout in Germany is only just becoming clear.<\/p>\n
CDU lawmaker Konstantin von Notz told AFP that the scale of the suspected attacks was “extremely worrying”.<\/p>\n
“At present, no one can say with any certainty whether the integrity of MPs’ communications is still guaranteed,” he said.<\/p>\n
Merz’s centre-right CDU party has so far not commented on how many of its lawmakers have been affected.<\/p>\n
But earlier this week Der Spiegel news outlet reported that parliament speaker Julia Kloeckner’s Signal account had been compromised.<\/p>\n
Kloeckner is a member of the CDU’s executive committee, whose members — including Merz — reportedly communicate via a Signal chat group, although no irregularities were detected on the chancellor’s phone.<\/p>\n
His centre-left coalition partner, the SPD, and the far-left Die Linke have also said “a few” of their lawmakers have fallen victim.<\/p>\n
Asked about the issue at a regular press briefing on Friday, a spokeswoman for the interior ministry said the attack is “probably led by a state actor”, adding that official warnings had been issued at the beginning of February and again last week.<\/p>\n
Russia-linked hackers have been accused of being behind a string of cyberattacks in Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Germany intelligence services accused hackers associated with Russian military intelligence of infiltrating internet routers to obtain sensitive information.<\/p>\n
The same group has also been accused of targeting air traffic control and of spreading disinformation ahead of last year’s general elections.<\/p>\n
sr\/bst\/giv<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German prosecutors Friday launched a spying investigation into phishing attacks targeting lawmakers on the Signal messaging app, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,7224,4582,7225,4749,393,5,1235,1495,6969,358],"class_list":["post-7365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-afp","tag-christian-democratic-union-of-germany","tag-cyberattack","tag-cyberwarfare","tag-espionage","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-government","tag-national-security","tag-phishing","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}