Russia-linked hackers target Signal, WhatsApp of officials globally

Dutch intelligence and Google researchers warn of an active Russia-linked global campaign targeting Signal and WhatsApp accounts of government officials, military personnel, and other persons of interest. Attackers primarily abuse legitimate app features—such as Signal's linked-devices QR pairing—and use social engineering and malicious QR codes to link victim accounts to attacker-controlled instances, enabling real-time eavesdropping; some actors have also used scripts and malware to steal Signal database files.