Apple Warns Users in 110 Countries They May Be Targets of Mercenary Spyware

Summary: Apple sent a new round of threat notifications to customers it suspects were targeted by mercenary spyware, alerting users in 110 countries and bringing the total notified to over 150 countries since it began sending such alerts in late 2021. Apple said it does not attribute the attacks to any specific attackers or regions, and typically sends these high-confidence alerts to journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats targeted because of who they are or what they do.
Bottom line: Apple's alerts reached users in 110 countries in a single batch, and a Bahraini human rights activist reported a record number of people contacting Access Now for help afterward - with Citizen Lab's John Scott-Railton calling the public posts an 'iceberg' hiding far more notifications. The recipients are people singled out individually, which means the targeting is deliberate and the exploits are built with resources regular cybercrime does not have.

Read the original at The Hacker News ↗