Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, KC Venugopal receive "Apple warning messages"
Oct 31, 2023
New Delhi [India], October 31 : Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and party's General Secretary organisation KC Venugopal received the "Apple warning message" on their phone on Tuesday along with other opposition leaders from the INDIA bloc, sources said.
The leaders of the opposition parties have alleged that the Government was behind this attempt to breach their devices.
After receiving the warning messages, multiple political leaders have alleged that their Apple devices have been the victim of alleged hacking. The leaders shared the screenshot of the warning received on their devices.
"This is not an allegation. The message has already been received. What is happening? They want to see who is talking to whom...We have not heard anything from the government. I have not heard a single word from the government's side. They should clarify," RJD MP told ANI on Tuesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Supreme Court Advocate Nalin Kohli replied to the opposition's claim of their phones being hacked by the Centre and said "How can we assume that the Government of India has done this?"
Speaking to ANI BJP leader Nalin Kohli said "There are very serious allegations against Mahua Moitra. For that, she will also have to go before the Parliament's Ethics Committee and have to answer. Was her email address used to harm one business and benefit another? These are all serious allegations. Now she is talking about phone hacking. If someone tries to hack, a notification comes immediately on the phone. How can we assume that the Government of India has done this? On what basis is she saying this?"
The leaders alleged that the Government was behind this attempt to breach their devices.
AAP MP Raghav Chaddha also got the alleged hacking notification on his phone and claimed that this was an attack on the people of India.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who also claimed alleged hacking of her phone alleged that this is a sponsored program of the Central Government.
"The way I received a warning last night, shows that this is a sponsored program of the Central Government and that I need to take precautions. The warning clearly says that these attacks are 'state-sponsored'. Why are the leaders of the Opposition only getting such messages? This shows that large-scale surveillance is underway. There should be an investigation on this, and the Centre needs to give a clarification on the same," Priyanka Chaturvedi told ANI.
However, according to the Apple support page on its website, State-sponsored attacks are highly complex, cost millions of dollars to develop, and often have a short shelf life. The vast majority of users will never be targeted by such attacks.
Apple says if it discovers activity consistent with a state-sponsored attack, it will notify the targeted users in two ways. A Threat Notification will be displayed at the top of the page after the user has signed in to appleid.apple.com. Additionally, Apple will send an email and iMessage notification to the email addresses and phone numbers associated with the user's Apple ID.
