The speaker of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, was reportedly the target of a cyber attack that targeted users of the Signal messaging app. Julia Klöckner, a prominent member of the CDU and close to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, allegedly had the Signal account compromised.
Cyber attack in Germany. PHOTO: Shutterstock
According to an investigation published by Der Spiegel, the German intelligence services attribute these attacks to Russia, in the context of the intensification of hybrid warfare in Europe.
Julia Klöckner, a prominent member of the CDU and close to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, allegedly had the Signal account compromised. According to the cited sources, Klöckner is part of the party leadership, and members of the CDU executive, including the chancellor, use a discussion group on this app for internal communication.
Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for Julia Klöckner would neither confirm nor deny the incident, saying the German parliament does not routinely provide information on critical security infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the BfV (Germany's domestic intelligence service) informed Friedrich Merz about the situation. Following the checks carried out, the chancellor's phone showed no signs of compromise.
The authorities' warning comes amid a wave of phishing attacks, a method by which attackers pose as trustworthy entities to obtain sensitive data or trick victims into accessing malicious links. Just this week, the BfV warned German lawmakers about the scale of these attacks.
“We have to assume that a large number of Signal groups in the parliamentary sphere are being read by almost undetected attackers,” the agency's representatives said, quoted by Der Spiegel.
Recently, prosecutors, investigators and anti-corruption institutions in Ukraine were the main targets of a hacking operation attributed to Russia. The attack also targeted NATO countries, such as Romania, where dozens of accounts managed by the Air Force and NATO bases were hacked.
Most of the victims are from Ukraine, where more than 170 accounts belonging to prosecutors, investigators and institutions involved in the fight against corruption and identifying Russian collaborators were hacked.
