Turkish APT exploits chat app zero-day to spy on Iraqi Kurds

For a year now, a Turkish espionage group has been using a vulnerability in a messaging app to spy on Kurdish military forces operating in Iraq.

The app is Output Messenger — a multiplatform enterprise messaging service with north of 50,000 downloads from the Google Play store. It’s marketed as a private, secure solution, making it a potentially attractive option for organizations managing ultrasensitive communications. One such organization has been the Peshmerga, the military group controlling the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

For at least four decades, the Kurdish armed forces have been in conflict with the Turkish state, where Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Now, during a historic easing of tensions, Microsoft has revealed that one side has had the upper hand in intelligence. According to a new blog post, a Turkey-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) has been using a zero-day bug in Output Messenger to spy on the Kurdish military since April 2024.

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