As per the Reuters report, Apple is alerting iPhone users in 92 countries about mercenary spyware attacks.
According to a threat notification email sent to targeted users, Apple detected attempts to remotely compromise the iPhone. The targeted attacks was not attributed to any specific state-sponsored attacker.
Initially, Apple explicitly referred to state-sponsored attacks. After the last warnings to Indian opposition politicians and journalists, the government there appeared to be annoyed – unfavorable for Apple. After all, India is becoming increasingly important as an iPhone production location.
Apple’s removal of the term “state-sponsored” from its description of threat notifications comes after it repeatedly faced pressure from the Indian government on linking such breaches to state actors, said a source with direct knowledge.
Apple started sending such kind of threat notifications in 2021, and since then the company has notified users in more than 150 countries.
Apple recommends that targeted iPhone users update their devices to the latest software version and contact cybersecurity experts to investigate potential compromise.
In response to a wave of sophisticated attacks against Apple users in July 2022, Apple developed a new security feature, called lockdown mode, to protect its users against highly targeted cyberattacks.
