Govt to probe Oppn MPs' claims of getting hacking attempt warnings from Apple

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government 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'.

Bhopal: Terming those raising the issue of alleged hacking of their Apple iPhones as “compulsive critiques,” Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday said the government has already ordered an investigation to go to the depth of the matter.

“There are many compulsive critiques in our country. Their only job is to criticize the government as and when they wake up, as and when they find an opportunity.”

"We have already ordered an investigation and we request each and every person who has received an advisory to cooperate with the investigation and make sure that we go to the depth of the matter,” Vaishnaw, who is also the Railway Minister, told reporters here at the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) office.

Vaishnaw is camping here for quite some time to oversee the ongoing assembly polls campaign in Madhya Pradesh ahead of November 17 polling in the state.

“You must have all seen the advisory issued by Apple, this is a vague advisory. It is based on certain estimations that they have done. Apple has already clarified that their encryption system is of the highest possible order. They have also clarified and issued a statement that this type of advisory has been issued in 150 countries,” he said.

Some Opposition MPs have claimed that they have received warning messages from Apple Inc of possible hacking attempts on their iPhones.

Taking a dig at the allegations, Vaishnaw said these compulsive critiques have only one habit, whenever they don't have any major issue, the only thing they say is “surveillance”.

"As they tried a few years back, we have conducted a proper investigation. The matter was supervised by the honourable judiciary also, but nothing came out of that investigation including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who says that her two children's phones were hacked. But nothing of that sort happened. This is a falsehood that some compulsive critiques are trying to spread,” he said.

He also said that the Opposition wanted to distract the people from the progress that the country is making under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Their only aim is to throw some allegations and whether anything comes out of it or not, they are not concerned. This kind of behaviour and this kind of politics that these people are trying to do is not good, healthy and this is not the way the country's Opposition should behave,” the former bureaucrat-turned-minister remarked.

Answering a question, the minister said, “We have already ordered an investigation and we request each and every person who has received an advisory to cooperate with the investigation and make sure that we go to the depth of the matter.”

Asked about the timeframe for completing the investigation, Vaishnaw said,“It will be done soon as matters related to technology have a trail of everything. We have also asked Apple to please cooperate in the investigation as this is a matter of great concern to us."

“It will be a very technical kind of investigation. This requires a technical domain therefore, a technically qualified agency like Cert-In, which has global collaboration with all the major experts of the world. They will be investigating and they will be taking help from all other law enforcement agencies as and when required.”

To a query whether it has something to do with Trinamool Congress MP Mohua Moitra's ongoing issue in the Lok Sabha, Vaishnaw said that anyone can level any allegations. "The advisory was issued in 150 countries, whether any such thing is present there also?" he asked.

Moreover, Cert-In had already issued an advisory on October 27, to update the Apple system.

Answering another query on the issue, the minister said, “We are very concerned about it, we are serious about it. But we want the people who are making allegations about it to fully cooperate with the investigation.”

The minister also said that the moment they received a complaint, they immediately ordered an inquiry.

Several Opposition MPs on Tuesday claimed they had received an alert from Apple warning them of "state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and posted purported screenshots of the message on their X handles.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Trinamool Congress' Mahua Moitra, Aam Aadmi Party's Raghav Chadha, Congress' Shashi Tharoor and his party's media and publicity department head Pawan Khera shared the message from Apple on X.