Pretending To Be Angela Merkel, Hackers Try To Control The WhatsApp Account Of The European Central Bank President

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde (right) has her account hacked. (photo: twitter @lagarde)

JAKARTA - Unidentified hackers are trying to trick European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde into letting them open a messaging app account in her name. They did so under the guise of former German chancellor Angela Merkel. This was revealed from a source in Germany, Tuesday, July 12.

"The plot was quickly thwarted without any information being compromised," an ECB spokesman said.

"We can confirm that there was a recent attempted cyber incident involving the president," an ECB spokesman said. "It was identified and quickly terminated. No information was compromised. We have nothing more to say as the investigation is ongoing."

The incident was first reported by Business Insider. But a source familiar with the matter told Reuters that hackers pretending to be Merkel messaged Lagarde asking her to reveal an authentication code that would allow them to open a WhatsApp account linked to Lagarde's phone number. However, there is no official confirmation regarding this.

In a letter dated July 4 and seen by Reuters, Germany's domestic intelligence agency and the Federal Office for Information Security warned German lawmakers that such a scheme was underway but without naming any of the targets.

"In particular, the attackers exploited the relationship of trust that existed between two high-level political figures," he said, referring to a "social engineering campaign".

While the tactic is not new, German authorities say the scheme is unique in that it uses the guise of a top politician.

"Affected parties who provide authentication data to attackers lose control of their respective messenger accounts. Attackers can then use these accounts, for example, to attack others," the warning letter said.

In such schemes it usually asks mobile users to switch from SMS to WhatsApp, but it could also be Signal or Telegram, both of which market themselves as securely encrypted apps.