Apple warns iPhone users in India, 97 other countries of Pegasus-like spyware attack

“Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID -xxx-. This attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are or what you do. Although it’s never possible to achieve absolute certainty when detecting such attacks, Apple has high confidence in this warning — please take it seriously,” Apple wrote in the new alert.

“Mercenary spyware attacks, such as those using Pegasus from the NSO Group, are exceptionally rare and vastly more sophisticated than regular cybercriminal activity or consumer malware. These attacks cost millions of dollars and are individually deployed against a very small number of people, but the targeting is ongoing and global,” said the notification.

Here’s what a “mercenary spyware attack” threat notification looks like after signing into a targeted Apple ID on the Web.

Apple also sends alerts via 📧 and 💬iMessage if your account may have been targeted.

Lockdown Mode can help protect your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and 🍎Watch. https://t.co/7xFOMDyIBr pic.twitter.com/siYGU2anMh

— Josh Long (the JoshMeister) (@theJoshMeister) July 10, 2024

As per a report by TechCrunch, some iPhone users in India are among those who received the latest notification, but it did not disclose the list of other countries. In a statement to The Indian Express, Iltija Mufti, the daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti claimed that she recently received an Apple threat notification saying that her iPhone may have been attacked by “mercenary spyware.”

A source with knowledge of Apple’s threat notifications said that these alerts were sent as a part of the company’s quarterly update process, but it is still unclear if and when exactly the attack may have taken place. This means that some devices may have been affected for some months before they received the alert.

Last year, the company had alerted political leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Raghav Chadha and Mahua Moitra, warning them of a “potential state-sponsored spyware attack”, but since then, the tech giant seems to have diluted its language when sending these threat notifications. When the company sent the notification in October last year, at least 20 Indians with iPhones had received them.

In 2021,  the Supreme Court even formed a committee that comprised technical experts to look into the use of unauthorised surveillance using software like Pegasus, but investigations into such issues haven’t unveiled anything. Apple has said that it uses “internal threat intelligence information and investigations to detect such attacks.”