Cyber agency had flagged 28 cases of security threat in Apple products in last 10 months

Apple may currently be facing heat over the possibility of state-sponsored hacking alert notices received by several opposition party leaders on their iPhones. However, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), had detected and flagged 28 cases of vulnerabilities in the company’s products between January and October this year. The latest such alert was issued on October 27.

Official sources said that notices with regard to these vulnerabilities were sent to Apple, requiring action on its part. The vulnerabilities flagged by CERT-IN related to multiple Apple products such as Apple iOS, iPadOS, Apple iTunes, Apple macOS, Apple Safari, Apple tvOS, watchOS, etc.

“Multiple vulnerabilities are found in Apple products, which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, bypass security restrictions, gain access to sensitive information, data manipulation,” read the advisories issued by CERT-IN.

To protect personal data and security breaches, the agency had strongly recommended the users to install the latest updates for iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and Safari.

It was not that such vulnerabilities were detected only in Apple products. Overall, around 300 such cases were detected by the agency during the period, involving other manufacturers and their products.

Interestingly, CERT-IN, a nodal agency under the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity), which deals with cyber security threats, will also probe the current hacking alerts. Sources said that Apple has agreed to join the probe.  

Queries sent to Apple on the matter did not elicit any response till the time of going to the press.

“We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future,” Apple had said on Tuesday in response to the state-sponsored hack alerts received by several opposition leaders.

With regard to the investigation in the matter, the government has sought more information from Apple, including the location from where the hack was attempted, time at which the hack was tried, IP addresses, and whether the attacker was able to hack into the devices, or not.

Calling the clarification provided by Apple as vague and non-specific in nature, communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said the investigation in the matter will be very technical requiring domain expertise. “A technically qualified agency like CERT-IN, which has global collaboration with all the major experts of the world will be investigating and will be taking help from all other law enforcement agencies as and when required,” the minister said.

Meanwhile, the hacking alert notices on Wednesday led to political wrangling with several opposition MPs demanding that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and IT should call an urgent meeting to look into the issue. However, BJP MP, Nishikant Dubey, who is a member of the panel, said that the committee cannot take up Apple’s warning message issue as the matter comes under the government’s jurisdiction according to Lok Sabha rules.