Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal hit out at the central government on Wednesday after opposition party leaders received an ‘Apple warning message’ claiming a privacy breach attempt on their devices. “The government itself has people who are compulsive wrongdoers. Why talk of the opposition? Everything that this government has done since it came to power has been contrary to the Constitution. Actually, they have subverted every provision of the Constitution. People belonging to the BJP, against whom serious cases are pending, are out on bail. This is a complete misuse of the system,” Kapil Sibal told ANI.
Earlier on Tuesday, several political leaders also reported receiving alerts from Apple. Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and the party’s General Secretary organisation KC Venugopal, Congress’ Pawan Khera, Shashi Tharoor, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, BRS working president KT Rama Rao and AAP MP Raghav Chaddha are among others who reported receiving alert messages from Apple.
The leaders of the opposition parties have alleged that the government was behind the attempt to breach their devices. The leaders also shared screenshots of the warning received on their devices. After a major controversy erupted between the ruling party and the opposition leaders over the alleged hacking of their phones, Apple officially announced that it does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.
“State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms or that some attacks are not detected,” Apple said in a statement.
The tech giant further said that they are unable to provide information about what causes them to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behavior to evade detection in the future.
Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government has asked Apple to join the investigation with “accurate information on the alleged state-sponsored attacks”.
“The Government of Bharat takes its role of protecting the privacy and security of all citizens very seriously and will investigate to get to the bottom of these notifications. In light of such information and widespread speculation, we have also asked Apple to join the investigation with real, accurate information on the alleged state-sponsored attacks,” Vaishnaw posted on X.
