Apple sent users in 99 countries notifications about possible attacks involving spyware. Meanwhile, German authorities are investigating reports that lawmakers and government officials may have been targeted in the attacks, UNN reports, citing 9to5Mac.
Details
Today, The Financial Times and TechCrunch published reports that complement each other with information about a new wave of notifications from Apple. In them, the company warns users that they may have been targeted in attacks involving spyware.
The media outlet notes that Apple periodically sends threat notifications to users who, in the company’s view, may have been targeted by spyware attacks. Apple does not disclose who may be behind the attacks and does not confirm that a specific device was compromised, but advises recipients to take the warnings seriously and seek help from specialists.
According to The Financial Times, last Thursday German lawmakers and government officials began receiving threat notifications from Apple. In response, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security issued an urgent warning over the weekend.
The agency advised recipients to "assume that their devices are no longer secure." The German government, in turn, said that it "takes this incident and the warning very seriously" and is "doing everything possible to clarify the circumstances of the incident."
The FT reports that German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius declined to say whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among those affected. It also reports that the attacks exploited a "zero-click" vulnerability, which allows attackers to compromise devices without any action by the owner.
To carry out the attack, hackers only needed to know the phone numbers of their targets.
TechCrunch, reporting on these warnings, notes that "Apple notifications were received not only in Germany." Among those who received such a message was Beirut-based filmmaker Radwan Mortada, who shared a screenshot of the warning he received on the social network X.
According to TechCrunch, it is currently unknown who is behind this new wave of spyware attacks and which government may have organized the targeted attacks.
According to the message received by Mortada, Apple sent this series of warnings to users in 99 countries. In his post, Mortada also noted that he had previously— in 2017 and 2021—been targeted by Pegasus spyware, and that he does not know who is behind the latest attempt or whether it is connected to the investigative documentary he directed.