'Baseless & Fake': BJP on snooping charge after Opposition leaders share 'state-sponsored attack' alert from Apple

BJP has rejected claims made by several Opposition leaders that they received messages from Apple warning them of “state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise” their iPhones. “They (Opposition leaders) should clarify the issue with Apple. The allegations against Centre’s involvement in the case are completely false,” BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said Tuesday. Opposition party leaders including Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena (UBT), AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Trinamool Congress’ Mahua Moitra posted screenshots of the message received on their phones which read, “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID.”

As per Apple’s official website, “Threat notifications are designed to inform and assist users who may have been targeted by state-sponsored attackers. These users are individually targeted because of who they are or what they do.” In 2021, Apple issued similar threat alerts to at least six activists and researchers who had been critical of Thailand’s government, warning it believed their iPhones had been targeted by “state-sponsored attackers.” Apple issues statement In a statement issued following the incident, Apple said, “Apple does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.” “State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete,” the company added. “It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected. We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future,” the statement added. With inputs from agencies