Russia accuses US of hacking thousands of iPhones for spying

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday (June 1) that it had detected an American spy operation that used a sophisticated surveillance software that allegedly hacked into thousands of iPhones, including those of diplomats. Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab claimed dozens of its employees' devices were compromised in the operation.

The FSB, which is the main successor to Soviet-era KGB, reportedly released a statement saying that several thousand Apple devices had been infected. FSB said that these included devices of domestic Russian subscribers as well as foreign diplomats based in Russia.

"The FSB has uncovered an intelligence action of the American special services using Apple mobile devices," the agency said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.

The FSB said the plot showed "close cooperation" between iPhone maker Apple and the National Security Agency (NSA), which is responsible for cryptographic and communications intelligence and security.

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The agency did not provide any evidence that showed Apple was aware of, or co-operated with the spying campaign.

Apple denied the allegations.

"We have never worked with any government to insert a backdoor into any Apple product and never will," the firm said in a statement.

Reuters said that NSA declined to comment.

Kaspersky CEO Eugene Kaspersky said on Twitter that dozens of his employees' phones were compromised in the operation, which his company described as "an extremely complex, professionally targeted cyberattack" that had targeted workers in "top and middle-management."

Kaspersky researcher Igor Kuznetsov told Reuters that his company had independently discovered anomalous traffic on its corporate Wi-Fi network around the start of the year. He said Kaspersky did not circulate its findings to Russia's Computer Emergency Response Team until earlier on Thursday.

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He reportedly said he was unable to comment on Russian allegation that Americans were responsible for the hacking.

"It's very hard to attribute anything to anyone," he said.

In a blog post, Kaspersky said the oldest traces of infection it discovered dated back to 2019. "As of the time of writing in June 2023, the attack is ongoing," the company said. It added that while its staff was hit, "we are quite confident that Kaspersky was not the main target of this cyberattack."

FSB alleged that the US hackers compromised diplomats from Israel, Syria, China and NATO members in the espionage campaign.

Foreign ministry backs FSB assertions

Russian foreign ministry backed FSB's claims.

"The hidden data collection was carried out through software vulnerabilities in U.S.-made mobile phones," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The U.S. intelligence services have been using IT corporations for decades in order to collect large-scale data of Internet users without their knowledge," the ministry said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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