‘Will get to the bottom’: Ashwini Vaishnaw on Apple’s threat notifications

NEW DELHI: Union minister for electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday said the government will “get to the bottom” of notifications sent by Apple to multiple people including at least seven opposition leaders that state-sponsored attackers were potentially remotely trying to compromise the iPhones associated with their Apple IDs.

“The Government of Bharat takes its role of protecting the privacy and security of all citizens very seriously and will investigate to get to the bottom of these notifications. In light of such information and widespread speculation, we have also asked Apple to join the investigation with real, accurate information on the alleged state sponsored attacks,” Vaishnaw said in a string of posts on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after announcing the probe at a media interaction in Bhopal.

Also Read: How Apple’s threat notification system works

The union minister’s announcement came after several opposition leaders cited the threat notifications from Apple to accuse the government of spying on them. Vaishnaw dismissed the allegation.

“There are many compulsive critics in our country. Their one and only job is to criticise the government as and when they wake up, as and when they find an opportunity. You must have all seen the advisory issued by Apple. This is a vague advisory. It is based on certain estimations that they have done. Apple has already clarified that their encryption system is of highest possible order. They have also clarified and issued a statement saying that this kind of advisory has been issued in 150 countries,” he said.

In a post on X, minister of state for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government will investigate these “threat notifications” as well as Apple’s “claims of being secure and privacy compliant devices”. Questioning Apple’s claims of designing privacy-preserving products, he also said that the government expects Apple to clarify “if its devices are secure” and why these notifications “are sent to people in over 150 countries”.

To be sure, the advisory has been sent by Apple to people in 150 countries since this notification system was introduced in November 2021, not just last night. Also, sending prompt warnings to users of attempts to compromise their devices or accounts is a desirable feature in a secure product and service.

Among the seven opposition leaders who received the alerts from Apple Monday were Congress’s Shashi Tharoor, TMC’s Mahua Moitra, and AAP’s Raghav Chadha amongst others. Multiple journalists also received this alert.

In a statement to HT, Apple said, “Apple does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.”

The company also reiterated that it was possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected. “We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future.”