JAKARTA - The United States authorities have revealed a cyber campaign linked to Russia that targets users of popular messaging apps, including Signal. The attack is said to have successfully hacked thousands of accounts, mainly belonging to individuals with high intelligence value.
In a joint warning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said hackers targeted active and former government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists.
According to US authorities, this attack does not exploit the encryption weakness of the application, but rather exploits social engineering. The perpetrators disguised themselves as trusted parties or security services to trick victims into sharing verification codes or other sensitive information.
"This activity targets individuals with high intelligence values," the official statement in the advisory said.
This warning reinforces global concerns about state-sponsored cyber operations. Previously, Dutch intelligence agencies also reported a similar campaign targeting users of messaging apps such as WhatsApp in various countries.
In response to the report, Signal said the attack was carried out through sophisticated phishing and there was no breach of its encryption system or application infrastructure. In other words, the main gap is not in technology, but in human factors.
The Russian embassy in Washington has not given an official response to the allegations.
This incident underscores that in the era of encrypted communications, the greatest threats do not always come from system weaknesses, but from user manipulation. For officials, journalists, to professionals who handle sensitive information, this kind of attack is a reminder that digital security is now as important as physical security - and often much more difficult to detect.
With the escalation of increasingly sophisticated attacks, US authorities encourage users to increase vigilance, including not sharing verification codes with any party and always verifying identity before responding to suspicious requests.
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