Apple sends messages to its users again: “mercenary attacks” are underway with spyware to control the iPhones of politicians, activists and journalists
Some users of iPhonein good 92 countries around the world, they are receiving worrying notifications on your iPhone: it is Apple which warns them that their phone might be spied on. It is not the first time that Apple sends warnings of this type to its customers, but unlike in the past, this time it has changed the terms a bit: the definition of “state-sponsored attacks” and comes that of “mercenary spyware attacks“.
The substance, however, does not change: many iPhones have been infected by sophisticated viruses who manage to spy on (and sometimes even actively control) their owners’ phones. Apple knows this, but can’t do anything about it.
Apple’s message to its users
The message from Apple it is clear, direct and without any mincing words: “Apple has discovered that you have been hit by a spyware attack by mercenaries, to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with its Apple ID. This attack was made specifically against you because of who you are or what you do“.
Apple also adds that it cannot be 100% certain when an attack occurs, but urges the user to take the matter very seriously.
State-sponsored? No: mercenary
It is not the first time that Apple sends messages of this type to its users, but it is now known that for years there have been powerful and effective malware capable of perfectly spying on iPhones too. The most famous is “Pegasus“, the Trojan developed by the Israeli company NSO Group and sold to secret services around the world.
Precisely for this reason, in the past, Apple had described these attacks with the term “state-sponsored“, Meaning what “state-sponsored attacks“. This definition, however, has been replaced and contested by Indian Governmentwho allegedly used spyware to monitor certain subjects deemed dangerous.
India is a strategic and very important country for Apple: not only is it a rapidly growing market, but it is also the place where Apple is gradually shifting its production of many of its productsin view of an increasingly probable trade war between the USA and China.
Who are the spied users?
Unlike the malware typical of the Android world, those intercepted by Apple are top notch software and extremely expensive. They are used for control political opponents, activists, journalists and other subjects capable of effectively challenging established power.
When Apple believes that a user may be the subject of espionage activity, as in this case, it suggests that they activate the “lockdown” (in Italian “isolation mode“). It is an extreme remedy for an extreme evil, as Apple itself explains:
Isolation mode adds an extreme and optional layer of protection for the small number of users who (due to their identity and activity) may be targets of some of the most sophisticated digital threats directed at them personally. Most people never experience attacks of this nature.
With this mode, in a nutshell, the iPhone remains turned on but is practically isolated from the outside, with strong limits on connections and access to internal files. In practice, the isolation mode must be activated when you take the phone to an expert technician in the hope that he will be able to disable spyware.
