iPhone Hacking: BJP Asks Opposition Leaders To File FIR

New Delhi: The central government on Tuesday ordered an investigation and asked tech giant Apple to join the investigation with real, accurate information on the “alleged state-sponsored attacks”.

MPs including including Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, Trinamool Congress’ Mahua Moitra, and Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha shared the screenshot 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.”

“These attackers are likely targeting you individually because of who you are or what you do. If your device is compromised by a state-sponsored attacker, they may be able to remotely access your sensitive data, communications, or even the camera and microphone. While it’s possible this is a false alarm, please take this warning seriously,” the message read further.

Apple issued a statement saying that it does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.

Apple’s statement suggests that since the time they started sending threat notifications, accounts in 150 countries have received the same. Apple has not said categorically whether these notifications across the world are being sent at the same time as users in India.

“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. 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 behavior to evade detection,” it added.

Speaking on the issue, Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “The government is concerned about this issue and it will go to the bottom of it. There are some compulsive critics in the country. These people can’t see the development of the country because when their family was in power they only thought about themselves. Apple has issued this advisory in 150 countries…”

“From the mail sent by from Apple, it can be understood that they have no clear information, they have sent alerts on the basis of an estimate. This is vague. Apple has released a clarification that the allegations by compulsive critics are not true. Such advisories have been sent to people in 150 countries,” he said.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dismissed the Opposition’s snooping changes and said it is for Apple to clarify the alerts it has sent to several people, including opposition leaders, about “state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise” their iPhones.

Party leader and former Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that instead of levelling allegations against the government, these leaders should take up the matter with Apple and file FIRs. He, however, cited his experience to claim that no telephone company does something like this and goes to CERT-In, an emergency response team, first to look into the matter.

Who else received the message?

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Shiv Sena’s (UBT) Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress leaders Pawan Khera, Rahul Gandhi, KC Venugopal, Supriya Shinatre, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi.