The Indian government has expressed its "deep concern" about the recent alerts concerning "state-sponsored attackers" sent by Apple to several Opposition leaders and public figures on their iPhones. As per an official from the committee secretariat, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) is contemplating the summoning of Apple officials during an upcoming meeting to address this issue, as reported by the news agency ANI.
The committee's secretariat has taken the matter with the utmost seriousness and expressed profound concern. A controversy arose when several Opposition leaders claimed that they received notifications from Apple regarding "state-sponsored attackers" attempting to compromise their iPhones. In response, they accused the government of hacking their devices. The government, on the other hand, refuted these allegations and promised a thorough investigation into the matter.
Among the recipients of these notifications were Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, along with other party leaders such as Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, KC Venugopal, Supriya Shrinate, TS Singhdeo, and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Members of other political parties, including Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, were also affected.
Furthermore, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Raghav Chadha, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, and some of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's aides received the same alert from Apple. In addition, individuals such as think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF) president Samir Saran, an officer on special duty (OSD) of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Siddharth Varadarajan, the founding editor of The Wire, were affected by these notifications.
Amidst this growing controversy, Apple issued a statement asserting that it did not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker. The company also mentioned that these notifications may potentially be false alarms.
In response, the Indian government emphasized its concern and announced a probe into the incident, noting that Apple had issued a broad advisory across nearly 150 countries, and the alerts were of a vague nature.
The Minister of Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, dismissed the Opposition's accusations against the government, characterizing them as distractions and the politics of compulsion. He assured that the government would conduct a thorough investigation into the matter to uncover the root cause of these notifications.
Vaishnaw also clarified that this matter required a highly technical investigation and would be handled by Cert-In, the national nodal agency responsible for responding to computer security incidents.
