Iltija Mufti and Pushparaj Deshpande have been informed by Apple about a potential hack on their phones, both being the daughter of ex-J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and the founder of Samruddha Bharat Foundation, respectively.
Apple has released a fresh batch of danger notifications to individuals in India and 97 other nations, cautioning them about a possible “mercenary spyware attack” targeting their iPhones from a distance.
Apple stated in a threat notification email on July 10 that mercenary spyware attacks, including those utilizing Pegasus from the NSO Group, are extremely uncommon and significantly more advanced than typical cybercriminal actions or consumer malware. Moneycontrol has examined a duplicate of the email.
On the same day, Iltija Mufti, who is a media adviser and the daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and Pushparaj Deshpande, founder of Samruddha Bharat Foundation, both stated on the microblogging site X that Apple informed them about a potential security breach on their phones.
Apple and MeitY did not reply to Moneycontrol’s questions.
Since 2021, users in more than 150 countries have been receiving these notifications from the tech giant.
Apple’s notification on July 10 also mentioned to iPhone users that attacks like the ones on their devices are expensive and only targeted towards a few individuals, but they are continuous and worldwide.
Mercenary spyware attacks are among the most advanced digital threats today due to their high cost, complexity, and global reach. The notification stated that Apple does not attribute the attacks or the notice to any specific attackers or geographical regions. The company stated that it depends only on internal threat intelligence information and investigations to identify such attacks.
Previously, similar notifications have caused controversy, leading to accusations by opposition leaders, activists, and journalists that the government is spying on its rivals. The issue made its way all the way to the Supreme Court. The court-appointed technical expert committee did not discover any Pegasus spyware on the mobile phones submitted for forensic examination.
In April, Cert-In, India’s main cybersecurity organization, found many weaknesses in Apple’s operating systems for iPhones and iPads, specifically in important apps like Safari.
Cert-In pointed out that earlier iterations of the Safari browser, specifically versions preceding 17.4.1, as well as iOS and iPadOS versions before 17.4.1, had vulnerabilities that may allow attackers to run arbitrary code on targeted devices.
