Indian Government To Investigate Alleged State-Sponsored iPhone Threats

Several Indian opposition politicians and journalists have received threat notifications from Apple stating that their iPhones are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers attempting to compromise their devices remotely.

In response, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated that the government will investigate the matter. He said that much of the information provided by Apple seems "vague and non-specific in nature" and urged the company to provide more accurate details to aid the probe.

Those who received the warnings include politicians across party lines, such as Mahua Moitra, Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, Asaduddin Owaisi, Sitaram Yechury, Raghav Chadha, Supriya Shrinate, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Revanth Reddy, and T S Singhdeo. Journalists Siddharth Varadarajan, Ravi Nair, Anand Mangnale, and Samir Saran also received similar threat alerts.

According to Apple, the threat notifications are intended to inform and assist users who may be targeted by state-sponsored cyber attacks. The company said detecting such threats relies on imperfect intelligence signals, so some alerts may be false alarms while some attacks may go undetected. Apple said it cannot reveal what triggers the alerts as that could help attackers evade future detection.

Minister Vaishnaw heavily criticized Apple, stating that its statement seemed vague. He said the government would get to the bottom of these notifications and asked Apple to join the investigation. The minister highlighted that Apple has claimed its Apple IDs are securely encrypted on devices, making unauthorized access extremely difficult.

Opposition leaders accused the government of attempting to hack devices to spy on them. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the hacking attempts were the acts of "criminals and thieves" but stated they were not scared.

Apple warnings are consistent with its protocols for spyware attacks. Notably, several Indian journalists and politicians received the same message on October 30, indicating a coordinated effort. Previous revelations have highlighted the Indian government's use of Pegasus spyware since 2019 to target opposition figures.

The alerts follow validation by Access Now and Citizen Lab last month of similar Apple warnings sent to Russian journalists. India is also reportedly exploring new spyware contracts worth up to $120 million with companies like the Intellexa Alliance. The notifications have thus raised concerns over potential surveillance of government critics.