Members of the Bundestag and members of the federal government may have fallen victim to a hacker attack using spyware on their iPhones. Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) confirmed corresponding information from the ARD capital studio on Sunday in ARD’s “Bericht aus Berlin”. It was a notification from the US technology company Apple that “certain devices may have been compromised with so-called spyware”, Wildberger said according to tagesschau.de.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) had “reacted super-fast” and informed all those affected in writing, the minister said. Which politicians could be affected is currently not publicly known. Wildberger gave no further details.
According to the BSI letter available to the ARD capital studio, iPhones had received a threat notification from Apple since 29 October that an attack with so-called mercenary spyware had been detected. “We currently have no further information on the specific occasion and the background of the notifications,” the BSI wrote. Whether the attack was successful is not clear from the notification. The authority advised those affected to “assume as a precaution that the device may be compromised”.
According to its own account, Apple generally does not disclose what triggered a notification and does not attribute attacks to specific attackers. The company describes the warnings as very reliable.
Wildberger expressed concern. “Nevertheless, this is something that of course concerns us very much,” he said according to welt.de. At the same time he warned against jumping to conclusions: “That is purely speculative at this point, what exactly this is about, we have to wait and see.” He would not necessarily attribute it to an AI attack, since spyware on phones has existed for some time.
Spyware are spying programs that send data to third parties without the user’s knowledge and consent. According to the BSI, attackers could thus access messages including encrypted messengers, calls, contacts, calendars and location; microphone and camera could also be switched on. The best-known example is Pegasus from NSO Group.
