Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger was identified in the joint NCSC-AIVD advisory of 9 March 2026 as one of the three messaging platforms targeted by state-linked actors, alongside Signal and WhatsApp, using malicious QR codes and contact impersonation to compromise accounts of high-risk individuals. Named threat actors include Russia's FSB Star Blizzard, China's APT31 and Iran's IRGC.

Facebook Messenger is Meta's primary consumer messaging platform, operating alongside WhatsApp and Instagram Direct. Unlike Signal and WhatsApp, Messenger does not offer end-to-end encryption by default on all message types; its inclusion in the advisory suggests the targeting is less about breaking encryption and more about account compromise via social engineering and QR-code hijacking techniques, regardless of the platform's underlying encryption model.

For civil-society users in the advisory's risk categories (politicians, journalists, academics, lawyers), the NCSC-AIVD recommendation is passkeys and a device audit across all three platforms. The inclusion of Messenger, with its larger mainstream user base, indicates that state actors are not limiting operations to encrypted-first platforms and are following their targets across all communications channels.