CERT-In starts probe into Apple threat notification matter: IT secretary

NEW DELHI: India's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has started its probe into the Apple threat notification issue, IT Secretary S Krishnan told reporters on the sidelines of an event related to the Meity-NSF research collaboration on Thursday.

"They (Apple) will cooperate in this probe," said the secretary.

CERT-In is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur.

Earlier this week, many Opposition leaders in India received an alert from the US tech giant Apple about some "state-sponsored" attackers "trying to remotely compromise" the device being used by them.

KC Venugopal, Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, Sitaram Yechury, Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Chaturvedi and "people in Rahul Gandhi's office" were among those who received alerts from Apple.

Apple later in a brief statement 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," the company said in a statement.

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.

The government had asked Apple to join investigations.

In a series of posts on X, the Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, said the government is concerned by the statements we have seen in media from some MPs as well as others about a notification received by them from Apple.

"The notification received by them as per media reports mentions 'state-sponsored attacks' on their devices. However much of the information by Apple on this issue seems vague and non-specific in nature. Apple states these notifications may be based on information that is 'incomplete or imperfect'. It also states that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms or some attacks are not detected," he posted on X.