After several leaders in the opposition parties reported receiving an ‘Apple warning message’, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK leader MK Stalin claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party fears defeat in the upcoming assembly elections in five states and alleged the party of misusing central agencies.
“BJP government is the one which misuses central agencies like IT, ED, CBI and they even tap phones. They (BJP) even threatened Apple mobile phone company after Opposition leaders stated that their iPhones were tapped. You all know the situation of our nation,” CM Stalin said while addressing an event in Tamil Nadu’s Chennai today.
Further urging the people to support the INDIA bloc, CM Stalin said, “The central BJP government is threatening the opposition whoever opined against them. They fear defeat. We are hearing that BJP is going to lose the upcoming elections in all five states. I appeal to you all to work together and make the INDI alliance win the parliamentary elections in 2024.”
Earlier on Tuesday, several political leaders reported receiving alerts from Apple claiming a privacy breach attempt on their devices.
Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and party’s General Secretary organisation KC Venugopal, Congress’ Pawan Khera, Shashi Tharoor, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, BRS working president KT Rama Rao and AAP MP Raghav Chaddha are among others who reported receiving alert messages from Apple.
Following this, Apple officially announced that it does not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker.
The tech giant further said that they are unable to provide information about what causes them to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future.
However, Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government has asked Apple to join the investigation with “accurate information on the alleged state-sponsored attacks”.
“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,” Vaishnaw posted on X. (ANI)
