Dutch agencies warn Russian state hackers are targeting Signal and WhatsApp accounts worldwide
Mar 9th 2026
Dutch military and domestic intelligence say Russian state hackers are using social engineering to hijack Signal and WhatsApp accounts of officials and military personnel worldwide, and warn this is an account takeover threat rather than a platform breach.
- Dutch intelligence agencies MIVD and AIVD issued a public advisory about a global campaign to compromise messaging accounts.
- Targets include dignitaries, civil servants, military personnel and journalists, and some Dutch government accounts have been compromised.
- The campaign abuses legitimate app features and social engineering rather than exploiting platform vulnerabilities.
- Signal and WhatsApp use the Signal Protocol for end to end encryption, but messages can be read if an attacker gains control of a user account or device.
- The advisory gave no estimate of victim numbers and did not attribute the operation to a specific Russian agency or hacking group.
- Agencies advise never to share verification codes, avoid scanning unknown QR codes and ignore messages that claim to be from app support.