CERT-In, the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents, has started its probe in the Apple threat notification issue raised by opposition MPs and has also sent a notice to the company, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary S Krishnan said on Thursday.
S Krishnan said he hopes Apple would cooperate with the investigation by CERT-In on the issue.
“CERT-In has started its probe… they (Apple) will cooperate in this probe,” news agency PTI quoted Krishnan as saying on the sidelines of an event related to the Meity-NSF research collaboration.
The entire issue began after several opposition leaders on Tuesday claimed they received an alert from Apple warning them of “state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise” their iPhones and alleged hacking by the government, a charge IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw rejected but assured a thorough probe.
Expressing “concerns” over the snooping claims made by the opposition leaders, Vaishnaw said an investigation has been ordered and asked tech giant Apple to join the investigation with real, accurate information on the “alleged state-sponsored attacks”.
Meanwhile, Apple issued a statement over the matter and said that it does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.
“State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s 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 behavior to evade detection,” Apple said.
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