The Washington Post reported that following Apple’s October alert regarding alleged government hacking attempts on iPhones of independent journalists and opposition politicians in India, officials swiftly responded against Apple. Officials from Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), currently holding the power in India, acted quickly to address the potential PR crisis triggered by the alerts on alleged government-sponsored hacking that were shared by journalists and politicians.
Amid the escalating pressure from the government, Apple India conceded possible inaccuracies in its threat-detection system and aimed to minimize the global implications of the alerts. Despite this, Apple maintained its position in a follwing meeting with Indian officials in November.
These alerts, which incidentally also went out to some of India’s opposition leaders and journalists, were seen as indications of possible state-sponsored attacks on their iPhones. The warning flag read, “ALERT: State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone”, suggesting a particular threat in relation to India. These global alerts, enabled since 2021, are intended to counter spyware threats and cover almost 150 countries, India included.
The nation’s Minister for Electronics and Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, took to Twitter in a series of posts on October 31, debunking the claims of state-sponsored attacks. He requested Apple to participate in an investigation into the alerts.
Notably, this isn’t the first time the Indian government has faced allegations of surveillance and data privacy breaches, particularly pertaining to critics of the regime. The Pegasus Project last year confirmed multiple instances of phones in India, including those of politicians, journalists, and human rights defenders, being infected with spyware. Based on these reports, it is likely a significant number of prominent individuals and their families were also targeted around the time of the 2019 general elections.