Description

The active spyware campaigns highlighted by CISA involve a multi-layered set of attack techniques aimed at compromising users of secure messaging platforms such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Threat actors are leveraging a combination of mobile OS vulnerabilities, deceptive application distribution, and account-takeover methods to gain persistent device access. One campaign abuses Signal’s “linked devices” feature, where attackers, through social-engineering or physical-device access opportunities, attempt to add their own rogue device to a victim’s Signal account. Once linked, the attacker can silently read messages, monitor activity, and exfiltrate data without additional interaction. On Android, adversaries are deploying spyware families such as ProSpy and ToSpy, which masquerade as legitimate messaging applications—including fraudulent versions of Signal or ToTok—to trick users into manual installation. These implants provide full surveillance capabilities such as microphone access, call logging, location tracking, and the exfiltration of chat data. A related campaign known as ClayRat spreads via Telegram-themed phishing landing pages. These pages impersonate widely used apps like WhatsApp, Google Photos, and TikTok to distribute trojanized APKs that harvest sensitive information once executed. WhatsApp users on iOS were targeted through a rare exploit chain combining two vulnerabilities—CVE-2025-43300 and CVE-2025-55177—allowing attackers to deploy spyware without requiring user interaction. Meanwhile, Samsung Galaxy devices in the Middle East were compromised using CVE-2025-21042, enabling a sophisticated implant called LANDFALL. Across all campaigns, attackers rely on zero-click exploits, QR-code–based device linking, fraudulent app distribution, and advanced social-engineering to bypass user trust and establish long-term surveillance footholds on targeted mobile devices.