Russia claims U.S. NSA accessed thousands of Apple iPhones in spy plot
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed on Thursday it had uncovered a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) plot using previously unknown malware to access vulnerabilities in Apple iPhones.
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The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said several thousand Apple phones had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers.
The Russian spy agency also said telephones belonging to foreign diplomats based in Russia and the former Soviet Union, including those from Israel, Syria, China and NATO members, had been targeted.
“The FSB has uncovered an intelligence action of the American special services using Apple mobile devices,” the FSB said in a statement.
The FSB said the plot showed “close cooperation” between Apple and the NSA, the U.S. agency responsible for U.S. cryptographic and communications intelligence and security…
The Russian warning on Apple phones came a few hours before Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab issued a report saying that an undisclosed number of its staffers had had their iPhones compromised in “an extremely complex, professionally targeted cyberattack”.
Kaspersky said spyware, delivered by an invisible message, was installed through vulnerabilities in the iOS operating system and that information from the phone was then transmitted to remote servers.