Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of trying to hack into senior opposition politicians’ iPhones, after they reported receiving warning messages from Apple.
Received from an Apple ID, threat-notifications@apple.com, which I have verified. Authenticity confirmed. Glad to keep underemployed officials busy at the expenses of taxpayers like me! Nothing more important to do?@PMOIndia @INCIndia @kharge @RahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/5zyuoFmaIa
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) October 31, 2023
Reuters:
Some of the lawmakers shared screenshots on social media of a notification quoting the iPhone manufacturer as saying: “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID”.
“Hack us all you want,” Gandhi told a news conference in New Delhi, in reference to Modi. “But we (opposition) will not stop questioning you.”
Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw expressed concern at the lawmakers’ statements and said the government had asked Apple to join its investigation into the matter.
The company said it did not attribute the threat notifications to “any specific state-sponsored attacker”.
In 2021, India was rocked by reports that the government had used Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to snoop on scores of journalists, activists and politicians, including Gandhi.
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds like a Jack Ryan plot-line, but that doesn’t make it true or false. It’ll be interesting to see if more information comes out about this. Find out more about Apple threat notifications and protecting against state-sponsored attacks via Apple Support here.
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