Signal that no longer works with Ukraine over Russian cyberhreats, says officially

Updated 3/14 at 11:25 a.m. with a mastodon comment comment from the President of the Signal Foundation Meredith Whittaker.

Kyiv, Ukraine -The encrypted messaging app has ceased to react to the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities in relation to Russian cyberhreats, a Ukrainian official claimed and warned that the shift supports the intelligence efforts of Moscow.

According to Serhii Demediuk, deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, signal remains one of the most exploited messaging apps for Russian espionage operations that are aimed at Ukrainian military personnel and government officials.

“With his inactivity, Signal Russians helps to collect information, to target our soldiers and to impair government officials,” said Demediuk on Tuesday in the Kyiv International Cyber ​​Resilience Forum.

Signal, a non -profit platform based in the United States, which is known for its commitment to privacy, did not respond to a request for comments. In a post on the Mastodon Social Media platform after the publication of this story, Signal Foundation President Meredith Whitaker said: “We officially work with a government, Ukraine or otherwise and we have never stopped. We are not sure where it came from or why.”

Demediuk spoke with recorded future news on the edge of the Kyiv Cyber ​​Forum and said that Ukraine used an “official communication channel” to signal how the app is misused, including the phishing attacks and the Account Takeovers against Ukrainian users. The company previously replied to such inquiries, but that is no longer the case.

“This is a threat to us,” said Demediuk. “If a messenger that we trusted and that we rely on, it fails, it becomes a problem.”

The Ukraine and Western researchers previously warned of attacks that were carried out by signal by Russia-connected threat actors.

In a report published in February, Google's security team warned that Russian state -supported hackers increasingly aimed at signal accounts, including those used by Ukrainian military personnel and government officials to access sensitive information that could support Moscow's war effort.

In these attacks, hackers usually use phishing messages to infect targeted devices with spyware. Another technology is to abuse the legitimate function “linked devices” from Signal, with which the app can be used on several devices at the same time – and provide the messages in real time to both the victim and the attacker.

Alternative to the telegram

The Ukrainians have increasingly turned as an alternative to the Russian messaging app telegram, which was generally assumed that they are exploited by Russian Intelligence for data acquisition and influencing operations, said Demediuk.

After the arrest of the founder Pavel Durov, born in Russia in Russia, who was examined for a number of crimes related to his platform, the cooperation of the app with the law enforcement authorities has improved according to Demediuk.

At the beginning of September, Telegram updated its terms of use and explained that the IP addresses and telephone numbers of users who violate the rules of the app would disclose “in response to valid legal inquiries”.

Although Telegram remains a threat, Demediuk said that it was unlikely that the Ukraine will block the app despite previous discussions. Blocking “is not a practical solution in the digital world”, he added – it would only serve as free advertising. Instead, users should be informed about the risks of use.

Ukraine has previously banned the telegram in official devices used by state and security officers, military personnel and employees of critical infrastructure facilities.

US ukraine collaboration

The freezing of the US foreign aid and a shift in the Trump government's approach to the war in Ukraine have had an impact on the cyber and information war efforts of Ukraine.

At the beginning of March, the US cyber command stopped planning offensive cyber operations against Russia in order to report both parties to the negotiating table. Trump later ordered a suspension of intelligence participation to Ukraine, but restarted after Kyiv approved the proposal in Washington for a 30-day interim aid fire with Russia.

The external AID Freeze has also influenced the initiatives of Ukraine against dissinformation. International programs supported by American agencies such as USAID have been discontinued, which represents an “significant threat” for the work of independent media and facts.

In January, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta announced changes to the guidelines of the content moderation and replace facts from third -party providers with a “community notes” system with which users can determine the accuracy of content.

The shift in US policy encouraged Ukraine to search for new partnerships in Europe and to explore new opportunities on the domestic market.

“We return to the idea that we always have to look for alternatives – for communication and information exchange,” said Demediuk.