At least three people in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s office have got a warning from Apple about a state-sponsored surveillance attack on their phone. The staff who received these messages were Rahul Gandhi’s assistant, security personnel, and communications in-charge.
This comes hours after several Opposition MPs and journalists got a similar message on their phones from Apple. MPs including Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra, Congress’s Shashi Tharoor, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi, Shiva Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Raghav Chaddha, among others.
Apart from MPs, journalists like Siddharth Varadarajan, the founder of Wire, Sriram Karri, the resident editor of Deccan Chronicle, and Revathi, an independent journalist also received the warning from Apple. Both Sriram and Revathi are from Telangana, a state that goes to polls on November 30.
The alert from Apple said,“State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone. 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. If you've previously received a threat notification from Apple, this additional notice is to inform you that we believe new or continued targeting has occurred.” It also specified about the next steps that should be taken by the user.
The message from Apple further said that state-sponsored attackers are “well-funded and sophisticated” and their attacks are constantly evolving. The message read, “Researchers and journalists have publicly documented such attacks against popular cloud services, including iMessage as well as Facebook Messenger, Gmail, Signal, and WhatsApp. Always update your messaging and cloud apps to the latest available versions, as they contain the most up-to-date security improvements. Some state-sponsored attacks require no interaction from you, and others rely on tricking you into clicking a malicious link or opening an attachment in an email, SMS, or other message. These attempts can be quite convincing, ranging from fake package tracking updates to custom- crafted, emotional appeals claiming a named family member is in danger.”