Germany warns of state-linked phishing campaign targeting journalists, government officials

German intelligence (BfV) and the federal cybersecurity office (BSI) warn of an active campaign—likely state-controlled—targeting senior officials and journalists across Europe by abusing messaging-app features (primarily Signal). Attackers use social engineering to obtain PINs/SMS codes or to trick victims into scanning QR codes that link accounts to attacker-controlled devices, enabling ongoing access to private communications; techniques could be reused against other platforms such as WhatsApp.