Apple warns opposition leaders of state-sponsored attacks on iPhones: Report
What's the story
Tech giant Apple has reportedly warned several opposition MPs and other leaders that state-sponsored actors may be targeting their iPhones. The Congress's Shashi Tharoor and Pawan Khera, Trinamool Congress's Mahua Moitra, Communist Party of India-Marxist's Sitaram Yechury, Aam Aadmi Party's Raghav Chadha, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Priyanka Chaturvedi, and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi shared the alert sent by Apple on X.
Journos
Journalists also on list of targets
Other opposition leaders who have reportedly received the threat notification include Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, Congress stalwart KC Venugopal, and Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule. Some journalists have also been alerted on their iPhones, including The Wire's Founding Editor Siddharth Varadarajan, Deccan Chronicle's Resident Editor Sriram Karri, Observer Research Foundation's President Samir Saran, and independent journalist Revathi.
Details
iPhones' threat detection system often imperfect: Government sources
Three people in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's office also received similar messages, NDTV reported. Government sources earlier said authorities are monitoring the situation. However, they claimed the iPhones' threat detection system is often "imperfect." Separately, Apple has issued a clarification, saying the iPhone threat notification could be a false alarm, adding that it "does not attribute the threat notification to any specific state-sponsored attacker."
Moitra's post
Writing to LS Speaker Birla, says Moitra
Meanwhile, TMC MP Moitra—who is at the center of the cash-for-query scandal involving industrialist Darshan Hiranandani—has tweeted she will write to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla over Apple's purported "state-sponsored attack" warning. She requested Birla to summon Union Home Affairs Ministry officials over the matter. Moitra added the incident was a "real breach" that Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw "need to worry about."
Twitter Post
Check out what Moitra posted on X
Writing officially to @loksabhaspeaker @ombirlakota requesting he follow RajDharma to protect Opposition MPs & summon @HMOIndia officials ASAP on our phones/email being hacked. Priveleges Committee needs to take up. @AshwiniVaishnaw this is real breach you need to worry about.
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) October 31, 2023
Warning
What Apple threat notifications said
Sending a warning to the aforementioned people, the threat notification purportedly said the attackers "may be able to remotely access your sensitive data, communications, or even the camera and microphone." Apple's website says detecting state-sponsored attacks depends on "often imperfect and incomplete" threat intelligence signals. However, it doesn't state what triggers such notifications since this may help attackers adapt their behavior to bypass detection.
Apple
State-sponsored attacks are nothing like mass-targeted cyberattacks: Apple
Further, Apple's website states that state-sponsored attacks are targeted at individuals because of "who they are or what they do." It adds that such attacks never target the majority of users since, unlike traditional cybercriminals, state-sponsored attacks cost millions of dollars to develop, have a short shelf life, and are hard to detect and prevent. Some attacks might even go undetected, it says.
Reminiscent of Pegasus
Incident reminiscent of Pegasus spyware scandal
The latest incident is reminiscent of the Pegasus snooping scandal that rocked India in 2021. The global collaborative Pegasus Project investigations disclosed that Pegasus spyware targeted the mobile devices of over 300 people in India, including opposition politicians, journalists, and activists, among others, Citing the data, The Wire previously reported most of them were targeted from 2018-19, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Details
About Pegasus, allegations against BJP government
Project Pegasus revealed a list of over 50,000 potential surveillance targets globally, which also included 300 Indian names. Pegasus is a military-grade spyware developed by the Israel-based company NSO Group. Interestingly, it is accessible only to verified government clients. In 2021, when the Pegasus Project findings surfaced, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s central government faced accusations of acquiring Pegasus to snoop on its critics.