Federal prosecutors initiated a preliminary investigation into alleged cyberattacks on Signal<\/a> accounts in mid-February 2026, a spokesperson for the federal prosecutors confirmed on Saturday. <\/p>\n The inquiry includes an initial suspicion of espionage, though no specific country has been named by the prosecutors.<\/p>\n While the German government has not officially attributed the attacks to Moscow<\/a>, Western officials note increased Russian-linked cyber activity across Europe since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. <\/a><\/p>\n German magazine Der Spiegel<\/a>, citing governmental sources, reported that around 300 Signal<\/a> accounts belonging to political figures were compromised in the incidents.<\/p>\n There is no official confirmation of the names of the victims. <\/p>\n According to Der Spiegel, the targeted users received messages from a fake Signal<\/a> security chatbot that informed them of suspicious activity on their accounts and asked them to take immediate action. <\/p>\n If the user followed the instructions, including entering a PIN<\/a> or scanning a QR code, their Signal<\/a> accounts were linked to an external device controlled by the hackers. <\/p>\n This allowed the attackers to read past chats, follow ongoing conversations and even see address books and other data stored by the users.<\/p>\n In February, Germany<\/a>‘s domestic intelligence service BfV and the federal cybersecurity authority BSI had issued a public warning about such a phishing campaign, saying it was \u201clikely being carried out by a state-controlled cyber actor.\u201d <\/p>\n According to the German press agency dpa, German authorities also contacted several politicians personally to warn them such attacks may have happened. <\/p>\n In March, Dutch<\/a> intelligence and security services also warned that \u201cRussian state hackers are engaged in a large-scale global cyber campaign to gain access to Signal and WhatsApp accounts belonging to dignitaries, military personnel and civil servants.\u201d<\/p>\n Targets include Dutch<\/a> government employees, the Dutch authorities warned at the time, and journalists may also have been targeted. <\/p>\n The Russian embassy in Berlin<\/a> did not respond to an AP request for comment. Moscow<\/a> has repeatedly \u200bdenied \u2060it is spying on other countries. <\/p>\n Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the German ambassador to Russia<\/a>, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry<\/a> on Monday morning, dpa reported, regarding alleged contacts between German politicians and terrorist organisations. <\/p>\n No connection has been made between the summons and the German media revelations about the Signal phishing attacks. <\/p>\n \u201cI will, of course, comply with the summons. I consider it unlikely that the Russian side will be able to substantiate its accusations,\u201d Lambsdorff said in advance. Relations between the two countries have been tense for years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6943,6945,5050,6944,6942,6946,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-12166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-bundestag","9":"tag-discours","10":"tag-horizontal","11":"tag-parlement-allemand","12":"tag-parti-et-mouvement-politique","13":"tag-plan-americain","14":"tag-russia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Germany-Signal_4114_.jpg\")
The German government suspects Russia is behind a series of phishing attacks on Signal targeting high-ranking politicians (Associated Press)<\/p>\n![\"Alexander](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/876996338.jpg\")
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the German ambassador to Russia, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday morning (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n