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European governments are increasingly encouraging their officials to move away from Signal and similar services like WhatsApp and Threema, which, though secure, are less easily controlled and monitored. France, Germany, Luxembourg, NATO and most recently Belgium have switched to in-house versions. The EU also has plans for “an interoperable set of secure communication solutions,” according to a document released last year.
The use of Signal by government officials came under intense scrutiny after senior members of the Trump administration last year were found to be exchanging military plans and classified information on the app — in a catastrophic breach of security that became known as Signalgate.
3. Moscow and cybercriminals both get blame
National security services have blamed the Kremlin for the recent campaigns targeting public officials on Signal. It’s unusual for cyber and intelligence agencies to explicitly say who they think is responsible for an attack while it is still ongoing — that process usually takes place some time after the event, and requires political and diplomatic approval.
A European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO with regard to shutting down the Signal group: “We do not comment on internal security practices. We take cybersecurity risks very seriously and have clear internal guidelines for our staff.”
When it comes to the hack of EU cloud services, officials have pointed to a major cybercriminal group. CERT-EU said Thursday that the ShinyHunters hacking group was to blame for the attack, adding that the group leaked 340GB of Commission data on the dark web.
ShinyHunters was previously linked to a major hack of a Dutch telecom operator in February, and is part of a wider web of cybercrime groups that claimed responsibility for a hack of Jaguar Land Rover that knocked approximately €2.2 billion off the United Kingdom’s economy last year.
The hacking group is English-speaking and is known for sophisticated scams. It previously received global attention after attacking Google.
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