Apple Issues Warning to iPhone Users in 98 Countries Over Spyware Attack

New messages have been sent out to Apple iPhone customers in 98 countries, alerting them to the possibility of mercenary malware attacks. This is the company’s second warning campaign of its kind this year. In April, it issued a similar message to subscribers in 92 countries.

According to the support section on Apple’s website, these messages have been periodically sent by the business since 2021, reaching consumers in more than 150 countries. The names of the attackers and the countries where consumers were notified were not disclosed in the most recent warnings, which were released on July 10th.

Because of your identity or the things you do, you are probably the target of this attack. Even though there’s no way to know for sure when these kinds of attacks are happening, the company said that Apple is quite confident in these warnings and that it should take them very seriously. 

According to user testimonies, Apple has recently sent out danger alerts, and consumers in India are some of those who have gotten them. Apple has previously sent such warnings to other national media and lawmakers last October. Pegasus, a very intrusive piece of software created by the Israeli company NSO Group, was found on the iPhones of well-known Indian journalists, according to a subsequent study by the human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International.

Apple warned impacted consumers that disclosing more information might help attackers avoid future detection due to the cryptic design of its detection algorithms.

Additionally, Apple has changed its terminology significantly from last year, referring to these attacks as mercenary spyware assaults rather than state-sponsored operations.  Apple has said that it learns about these kinds of assaults through its internal investigations and threat-intelligence data.

According to Apple, these types of attacks may use cunning strategies to trick victims into divulging sensitive information, such as login passwords, secret codes, and banking details.