Germany's federal cybersecurity office, the BSI, advised targeted individuals to assume their devices have been breached following Apple's alerts regarding government-backed spyware. Government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius confirmed that Berlin is treating the matter with high seriousness, though officials declined to verify whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz received a notification. The sophisticated software relies on zero-click exploits capable of secretly harvesting location data, personal messages, and sensitive files.
Key points
German authorities are advising any notified public figures to assume their mobile device…: German authorities are advising any notified public figures to assume their mobile devices have been fully breached.
Apple's automated threat alerts do not attribute the identified attacks to specific gover…: Apple's automated threat alerts do not attribute the identified attacks to specific governments or guarantee successful infiltration.
Investigators have not yet identified the foreign state responsible or the specific comme…: Investigators have not yet identified the foreign state responsible or the specific commercial spyware tools deployed in the campaign.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
The German government is warning politicians and public figures that they were targeted by government-backed spyware, days after Apple began sending out notifications warning victims that their iPhones may have been hacked.
Germany’s federal cybersecurity office, known as the BSI, said in a note over the weekend that it had become aware that members of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, and other unnamed notable individuals, had received warnings from Apple that they may have been targeted by cyberattacks.
Per the Financial Times, German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said the government in Berlin was “taking the incident and the warning very seriously,” but he did not say who in the federal government had been targeted, including whether German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among them.
Apple periodically sends out so-called threat notifications to people it thinks may have been targeted by spyware, which can steal messages, location data, and other sensitive information from their phones. This spyware often relies on zero-click exploits, which can hack individuals almost invisibly as they don’t require a victim to click on a link or open a file.
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