Parliamentary standing committee may summon Apple officials over hacking attempt alerts

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) is considering summoning Apple representatives during an upcoming meeting to address the recent ‘state-sponsored attacks’ on several public figures in India, news agency ANI reported on November 1. “The committee’s secretariat has expressed ‘deep concern’ and is treating the matter with the utmost seriousness,” ANI reported quoting a Committee secretariat official. The move came a day after a number of Opposition MPs claimed to have received a notification from Apple stating that their devices could be targeted by state-sponsored attackers. 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.”

Mahua Moitra shared a tweet containing screenshots of an alert sent by Apple, which carried the ominous title, “Your iPhone may be under the scrutiny of state-sponsored hackers.” Moitra also revealed that Priyanka Chaturvedi and three additional individuals belonging to the Opposition INDIA group had encountered identical warning messages on both their mobile phones and email accounts. Following this several other Opposition leaders started sharing that Apple had sent them similar notifications. Shashi Tharoor took to Twitter to express his thoughts on an email received from an Apple ID, threat-notifications@apple.com, which he verified for authenticity. He humorously remarked that it was reassuring to witness government officials with less workload keeping themselves occupied at the expense of taxpayers like himself. He concluded his tweet with a rhetorical question, hinting at the priorities of these officials.