It's for Apple to clarify; allegation baseless: BJP on alert to some opposition leaders

PTI

New Delhi, October 31

The BJP on Tuesday said it is for Apple to clarify the alerts it has sent to several people, including opposition leaders, about "state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and rejected the allegations against the government as "baseless and false".

Party leader and former Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that instead of levelling allegations against the government, these leaders should take up the matter with Apple and file FIRs.

He, however, cited his experience to claim that no telephone company does something like this and goes to CERT-In, an emergency response team, first to look into the matter.

Asked about the opposition leaders' charge, Prasad shot back, "It is for Apple to clarify. They should file an FIR if they have any problem. Who is stopping them?"

He recalled the controversy over the alleged use of Pegasus malware to hack into the phones of certain people, including opposition leaders, and said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had refused to deposit his iPhone before a committee appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the matter.

Several opposition leaders 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's Mahua Moitra, Aam Aadmi Party's Raghav Chadha, Congress's Shashi Tharoor and his party's media and publicity department head Pawan Khera shared the message from Apple on X. 

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