The FSB announced that the American intelligence services disclosed an “intelligence campaign” using iPhone smartphones, in particular, malware was found on the phones of subscribers of Russian diplomatic missions, representatives of NATO, China, Israel and Syria.
“Several thousand phone sets of this brand have been infected. At the same time, the facts of contamination of foreign numbers and subscribers using registered SIM cards, in addition to domestic subscribers, countries of the NATO bloc and the post-Soviet space and diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia, including Israel, SAR and China appeared.
FSB said.
It is stated that smartphones are “infected” with previously unknown malware. Used software vulnerabilities provided by the manufacturer (Apple).
In this regard, the FSB believes that the American company Apple works closely with American intelligence, especially the National Security Agency. In addition, the intelligence service states that “the declared policy to ensure the confidentiality of personal data of users of Apple devices is not correct”.
According to the FSB, Apple provides US intelligence agencies the opportunity to spy on anyone who concerns the White House.
Brother is watching you
This is not the first time that politicians and officials’ personal mobile devices have been used for surveillance. Thus, on May 31, 2021, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Danish intelligence services helped the US NSA track former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other politicians. According to the publication, in 2012-2014, the Danish intelligence services gave Washington access to a special station near Copenhagen, where the wiretapping was carried out.
According to the NDR TV channel, the German government was unaware of the surveillance. Merkel learned about the wiretapping from the media.
In addition, the newspaper reported that a company from the Danish Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military-industrial complex is under surveillance.
In 2013, former NSA officer Edward Snowden disclosed classified information confirming that American intelligence agencies are spying on prominent politicians and ordinary people around the world. Thus, it was concluded from the distributed materials that the NSA and the US Central Intelligence Agency intercepted e-mail and communications in 60 countries as part of the PRISM program. It was also learned that American IT giants cooperate with intelligence: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook (the owner of Meta was considered an extremist and banned in Russia), Apple and others.
After the disclosure of classified information, Snowden fled to Hong Kong and then remained in Russia. He was accused of espionage and stealing government property in the United States. In September 2022, Snowden received Russian citizenship.
Also in 2021, the French newspaper Les Echos reported that Western countries made extensive use of Israel’s Pegasus mobile spyware for surveillance. Thus, journalists from the international Forbidden Stories association and a number of media outlets found that politicians, journalists and lawyers were being watched. It was noted that the right to use this system is only given to states and state institutions with the special permission of the Israeli government.
Journalists, who learned that wiretapping has been done since 2016, managed to capture the list of 50 thousand subscriber numbers from 50 countries.
It was also reported in 2017 when a major document leak, codenamed Vault 7, was published by the WikiLeaks portal, in which mobile devices were used for surveillance by American intelligence. It was noted that special departments responsible for the CIA structure were created. Hacking Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and other companies.
It is understood from the broadcast that the devices were hacked both in order to obtain information about the owner and to use the device more as a transmitter. According to the portal, the CIA acted in cooperation with British intelligence, especially the hacking of Samsung products was carried out jointly with MI5/BTSS. The publication refers to the American consulate in Frankfurt am Main as a kind of “espionage center”, and employees of the CIA cyber center were given diplomatic passports.