Central Urgent Investigation Needed: Alleged State-Sponsored iPhone Attacks

Following claims by Opposition politicians and journalists that their iPhones were being targeted by state-sponsored attackers attempting to “remotely compromise” their phones, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the government would investigate the matter.

Many of those who received such notifications criticized the Central Government, accusing it of trying to hack into their devices to spy on them.

In response, Vaishnaw stated that the government takes the privacy and security of citizens seriously and would thoroughly investigate the notifications. The government also requested Apple to provide accurate information about the alleged state-sponsored attacks.

Politicians such as Pawan Khera, Sitaram Yechury, Raghav Chadha, Supriya Shrinate, Priyanka Chaturvedi, and T S Singhdeo, as well as journalists like Siddharth Varadarajan, Ravi Nair, Anand Mangnale, and Samir Saran, claimed to have received similar alerts from Apple.

Vaishnaw expressed concern that the information provided by Apple was vague and non-specific and urged the company to join the probe with more accurate information about the alleged spyware attack.

According to Apple, the threat notifications are designed to inform and assist users who may have been targeted by state-sponsored attackers. The company stated that if it discovers activity consistent with a state-sponsored attack, it will notify the targeted users through various means.

Apar Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation called the timing of these threat notifications “alarming” and urged for an independent, transparent technical analysis and clear disclosures from the Government of India regarding its spyware purchases and deployments.

Gupta referred to reports of the deployment of Israeli firm NSO Group’s spyware in India and expressed concern about the threat notifications, given the government’s lack of clear denial of these activities in the Supreme Court of India.

In 2021, the Pegasus Project reported that the phones of several Indians, including politicians, public officials, journalists, lawyers, and activists, were infected by the Pegasus spyware. The final report of a Supreme Court committee that investigated the use of Pegasus in India has not been made public yet.