India targets Apple over its phone hacking notifications

Some quotes from the article

In private, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, senior Modi administration officials called Apple’s India representatives to demand that the company help soften the political impact of the warnings. They also summoned an Apple security expert from outside the country to a meeting in New Delhi, where government representatives pressed the Apple official to come up with alternative explanations for the warnings to users, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Many of the more than 20 people who received Apple’s warnings at the end of October have been publicly critical of Modi or his longtime ally, Gautam Adani, an Indian energy and infrastructure tycoon. They included a firebrand politician from West Bengal state, a Communist leader from southern India and a New Delhi-based spokesman for the nation’s largest opposition party.

On Aug. 23, the OCCRP emailed Adani seeking comment for a story it would publish a week later alleging that his brother was part of a group that had secretly traded hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the Adani Group conglomerate’s public stock, possibly in violation of Indian securities law. A forensic analysis of Mangnale’s phone, conducted by Amnesty International and shared with The Washington Post, found that within 24 hours of that inquiry, an attacker infiltrated the device and planted Pegasus, the notorious spyware that was developed by Israeli company NSO Group and that NSO says is sold only to governments.

On social media, pro-government influencers further muddied the waters. Sanjeev Sanyal, one of Modi’s economic advisers, pointed out on X that, in Apple’s hacking alerts, the company advised targeted users to consult with Access Now, a digital rights group that Sanyal noted has received funding from George Soros, the liberal financier and philanthropist. Soros is often painted by the Indian right as a boogeyman who masterminds international conspiracies against India.