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Signal, the secure messaging app, warned on Monday that “government officials and journalists” had experienced their accounts being taken over by nefarious actors after falling for a phishing scam.
“We are aware of recent reports regarding targeted phishing attacks that have resulted in account takeovers of some Signal users, including government officials and journalists. We take this very seriously,” said Signal in a statement:
To be clear: Signal’s encryption and infrastructure have not been compromised and remain robust. These attacks were executed via sophisticated phishing campaigns, designed to trick users into sharing information – SMS codes and/or Signal PIN – to gain access to users’ accounts.
These attacks, like all phishing, rely on social engineering. Attackers impersonate trusted contacts or services (such as the non-existent “Signal Support Bot”) to trick victims into handing over their login credentials or other information. To help prevent this, remember that your Signal SMS verification code is only ever needed when you are first signing up for the Signal app.
To protect people from such phishing, Signal actively warns users against sharing their SMS code and PIN.
We also want to emphasize that Signal Support will *never* initiate contact via in-app messages, SMS, or social media to ask for your verification code or PIN. If anyone asks for any Signal related code, it is a scam. We make this clear when users receive their SMS code during initial signup.
While we build robust technical safeguards, user vigilance is ultimately the best defense against phishing. We will continue to work on mitigating these risks via interface design and signposting throughout the app. In the meantime, please stay alert, and never share your SMS verification code or Signal PIN with anyone.
Former Trump administration official Katie Miller, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, responded, “It’s actually pretty common and not that sophisticated — one of the reasons signal shouldn’t be fully trusted.”
According to recent reports, UK and Dutch government officials have been repeatedly targeted in Signal phishing efforts.
Last year, sensitive information about the Trump administration’s secret war plans in Yemen famously leaked after someone in the government accidentally added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to their Signal group chat.
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