Germany's BSI has issued warnings to political figures following Apple threat notifications sent to users across 99 countries regarding potential state-backed spyware targeting.
The advisory highlights the ongoing security challenges surrounding mobile device surveillance and state-associated threats.
Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said the government was taking the incident and the warnings very seriously. He did not reveal which government officials were targeted or whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among them.
Apple occasionally sends such alerts to people it believes may have been targeted. It does not name any governments as responsible and does not confirm whether a recipient's phone has actually been hacked. BSI advises anyone who receives an alert to assume their device may have been hacked. The spyware can steal messages, location data and other sensitive information.
The alerts also affected people outside of Germany. Radwan Mortada, a Beirut-based filmmaker, told X that he received a new notification from Apple about another attack on his device. He had also been targeted in 2021. According to the alert he received, Apple sent the latest series of alerts to users in 99 countries.
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It is not known who is behind the latest attacks or which government may have organized the targeting. Governments often buy such tools from private companies rather than making them themselves. The Israeli NSO Group is known for its controversial spyware program Pegasus. According to reports, the German federal police agency BKA bought access to it in 2019.
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