North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials, as well as troops and officers, are saying that Russia has taken aim at their personal smartphones, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Russia's goal is to get information on operations and troop strength and to intimidate soldiers, the officials said, according to The Journal.
The campaign's focus was on the 4,000 NATO troops sent to Poland and the Baltic states, The Journal report said. At least six soldiers have had their phones hacked, including U.S. Army Lt. Col. Christopher L'Heureux, NATO base commander in Poland.
L'Heureux said his phone had been hacked and reported lost. Then an Apple map appeared on the phone.
"It had a little Apple map, and in the center of the map was Moscow. It said, 'Somebody is trying to access your iPhone.'" He added that someone was tracking his location.
"They were geolocating me, whoever it was. I was like, 'What the heck is this?'" L'Heureux said in the report.
A message stating that "somebody is trying to access your iPhone" appeared on L'Heureux's phone, he said in The Journal.
In another instance, an Estonian soldier reported that his contacts were disappearing and music began playing that he had not downloaded.
An officer told The Wall Street Journal that an investigation found that Russia used a portable telephone antenna to hack into the phones and erase information, including contacts.
The officials said the phones could be used to confuse soldiers on the battlefield or to send out false instructions, slowing NATO's response time, according to The Journal.
Russia considers a military conflict with NATO countries a possibility, Russia's Pravda news site reported Tuesday.
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