Hyderabad:The Centre hasrebutted "The Washington Post" report on the Indian government allegedly targeting Apple after the company warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians that government hackers may have tried to break into their iPhones and called it "half facts, fully embellished".
Union Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has called the report "terrible" and "tiresome". "Rebutting @washingtonpost's terrible storytelling is tiresome, but someone has to do it. This story is half facts, fully embellished", said the Union Minister on his social media platform X.
The Washington Post published a story on December 27 in association with Amnesty and claimed that certain journalists had been targeted with the spyware on their iPhones, with the latest identified case occurring in October.
In its post on X, the Post claimed "A day after Apple warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians in October that government hackers probably tried to break into their iPhones, officials under Prime Minister Narendra Modi promptly took action against Apple."
Rajeev Chandrasekhar has raised concern and emphasised that the rest of the story includes Apple's response, which came on October 31. "Left out of the story is Apple's response on Oct 31- day of threat notifications," he stated.
Further sharing the rest of the story, Chandrashekhar quoted Apple's response, which said that Apple does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker, adding that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms or are not detected.
According to Apple, the company 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."
Rajeev Chandrasekhar informed that Apple was asked to join the enquiry with the CERT-In and meetings have been held and enquiry is ongoing on the Apple alert row.
Apple sent a team of experts to delve deep into the issue of some Indian politicians receiving threats notifications last month, warning them of state-sponsored hackers targeting their devices. Apple had sent "threat notifications" to individuals whose accounts are in nearly 150 countries.
In case you missed the row
- Apple alert on 'state-sponsored attacks' on politicians' phones: Who all got the message
- Apple alert: Mahua Moitra to write to LS speaker to protect opposition MPs
- Apple 'hacking' alerts: Why most politicians in India use iPhones
