NEW DELHI: The iPhone maker, Apple, has sent threat notifications to some users in India and 91 other countries, warning them of potential attacks by mercenary spyware.
The company also mentioned that it could be the NSO Group’s controversial Pegasus malware. The notification reads that Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID -xxx-. This attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are or what you do. The threat notification emails were sent around 12:30 AM IST on Thursday (April 11) to impacted users in India, and it is unclear how many people have received the warning message.
“Although it’s never possible to achieve absolute certainty when detecting such attacks, Apple has high confidence in this warning — please take it seriously… Mercenary spyware attacks, such as those using Pegasus from the NSO Group, are exceptionally rare and vastly more sophisticated than regular cybercriminal activity or consumer malware. These attacks cost millions of dollars and are individually deployed against a very small number of people, but the targeting is ongoing and global,” reads the warning notification from Apple.
This is the second warning notification from the American tech giant; in October 2024, it sent warning notifications to many prominent personalities in India, mainly opposition leaders. On 24 November 2023, parliamentarians including Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Trinamool Congress’ Mahua Moitra, Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha, and Congress’ Shashi Tharoor shared screenshots of warning messages indicating hacking attempts made by state-sponsored attackers on their social media platforms.
These individuals have alleged that the government is conducting surveillance on them. However, the government warded off their charges and said it asked the American tech giant to participate in the investigation to determine the reason behind this message. However, later, it clarified that it does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.
In Apple’s support page, Apple mentioned that since 2021, it has sent Apple threat notifications multiple times a year as it has detected these attacks, and to date, we have notified users in over 150 countries in total. However, Apple refuses to attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions.