New Delhi: The Wire can confirm that three opposition party Indian MPs – TMC’s Mahua Mitra, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and AAP’s Raghav Chadha – the general secretary of the CPI(M) and former MP Sitaram Yechury and founding editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan have received a notification from Apple, that “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID XXXX.”
The email titled “ALERT: State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone” goes on to say, “These attackers are likely targeting you individually because of who you are or what you do. If your device is compromised by a state-sponsored attacker, they may be able to remotely access your sensitive data, communications, or even the camera and microphone.”
It urges the recipients, “While it’s possible this is a false alarm, please take this warning seriously.”
It is not clear if there are global warnings or if these are a part of or about an India-specific attack.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi has tweeted the mail.
Wonder who? Shame on you.
Cc: @HMOIndia for your kind attention pic.twitter.com/COUJyisRDk— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) October 30, 2023
The others whom The Wire can confirm have received the warning from Apple are well known people who are open critics of the Narendra Modi government.
The Wire has written to Apple for comments on any further information it can share and this story will be updated when it does.
In 2021, Project Pegasus had unveiled possible attacks on hundreds of phones of leaders of the political opposition, including several phones connected with the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi, lawyers, civil society activists, sitting and retired judges, at least one election commissioner, and family members of such persons also, just before and after the previous general elections in 2019.
A final report of the Supreme Court committee set up to investigate cases of the use of Israeli-made software, Pegasus is yet to be released. The Modi government has never denied using Pegasus. You can read about Project Pegasus here. The Wire partnered with several global news outlets to unveil the cyber attacks by state-sponsored entities, as the spyware company NSO Group has always maintained it only sold Pegasus to governments.
Financial Times ran a report in March this year on alternatives to Pegasus being mulled over for purchase, some time back. The Indian government is scouring the globe for spyware it could use which has a “lower profile” than Pegasus, the advanced Israeli surveillance software.
FT wrote that the government is willing to spend anywhere up to $120 million to obtain the software, according to the newspaper which said it had spoken to people familiar with the matter. India’s defence ministry declined to comment on the report, the newspaper said.
In one significant case – the Elgar Parishad case in which 16 rights activists, lawyers and academics were arrested – independent cybersecurity companies have found that the activists’ devices were compromised with spyware and this technology was used to plant incriminating ‘evidence’ on the devices.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
If you have received such an email from Apple, please get in touch with us at editorial@thewire.in.
