Germany’s federal cybersecurity office, known as the BSI, has warned politicians and other public figures that their iPhones may have been targeted by spyware. The warning came after Apple sent threat notifications to users whose devices may have been targeted by sophisticated cyberattacks.
The BSI said it had learned that members of the Bundestag and other unnamed notable individuals in Germany received the alerts. Government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Berlin was taking the incident and Apple’s warnings “very seriously,” according to the Financial Times. He did not disclose which members of the federal government had been notified or whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among them.
Apple periodically sends threat notifications to people it believes may have been targeted by spyware. Such tools can extract messages, location data and other sensitive information, sometimes through zero-click exploits that do not require the victim to open a file or click a link.
Apple does not identify the governments or groups behind the suspected attacks, nor does it confirm that a device was successfully compromised. The BSI therefore advised recipients of an Apple alert to assume that their device may have been compromised.
The latest notifications were not limited to Germany. Beirut-based filmmaker Radwan Mortada said on X that Apple had warned him of “another attack against your device,” following a previous spyware incident in 2021. The notification said Apple’s latest alerts had been sent to users in 99 countries.
The identity of those behind the latest attacks remains unclear. The episode also draws attention to the private spyware industry, whose companies sell surveillance tools to governments. One of the best-known vendors is Israel’s NSO Group, the maker of Pegasus. Germany’s federal police agency, the BKA, reportedly obtained access to Pegasus in 2019.
Sources: TechCrunch.