Centre refutes report that India targeted Apple over phone hacking notifications

The Centre on Thursday strongly rebutted a media report that claimed that India targeted Apple over its phone hacking notifications, saying this is for Apple to explain if their devices are vulnerable and what triggered these notifications.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said that The Washington Post’s “terrible storytelling is tiresome, but someone has to do it”.

“This story is half facts, fully embellished. Left out of the story is Apple’s response on Oct 31 — day of threat notifications,” he posted on X.

Apple had said 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,” according to Apple.

According to the minister, the IT Ministry and his response to this incident has been consistent and clear from the incident.

“That it is for Apple to explain if their devices are vulnerable and what triggered these notifications. Apple was asked to join the enquiry with the CERT-In and meetings have been held and enquiry is ongoing,” said Chandrasekhar.

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.