iPhone warning notifications to MPs: Apple to meet CERT-In officials soon

Apple's US cybersecurity executives are likely to meet with CERT-In officials this month regarding the show cause notice issued to the company. The Indian government issued a show cause notice to Apple last month after several opposition MPs received a warning notice on their iPhones. CERT-In, which comes under Meity, had issued the cause notice to Apple in this regard.

Some opposition leaders claimed to have received an alert from Apple warning them about "state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and an alleged government hack. On Friday, November 24, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Apple has to respond to the notice to be made by its global cybersecurity team. "They have to come here and answer those questions. Basic issue is ongoing," the minister told reporters. The minister said the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In met with local Apple representatives, but the problem was beyond their ability to respond. "It is their cyber security people who have to come and meet CERT-In and they will come all the way from the US," the minister said. The minister said he is unsure about the dates but expects the team to meet Cert-In officials sometime this month.

All about the issue

Last month, several opposition leaders claimed they had received an alert from Apple warning them about "state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and an alleged government hack. IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw flatly rejected the claim and assured a thorough investigation. The minister said that Apple has issued the same notice in 150 countries.

Members of Parliament (MPs) who received the warning notification on their iPhones include Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, party leaders Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, K C Venugopal, Supriya Shrinate, T S Singhdeo and Bhupinder S Hooda; Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Aam Aadmi Party's Raghav Chadha, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi and some aides of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also received the notice.

Apple Response

"Apple 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. We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future," the company said.