Germany's federal cybersecurity office said members of the Bundestag and other unnamed public figures received Apple threat notifications warning they may have been targeted by government-backed spyware. German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Berlin was "taking the incident and the warning very seriously," but did not disclose which officials were targeted or whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz was affected.
Apple sends threat notifications to users it believes have been targeted by spyware capable of stealing messages, location data, and other sensitive information. The spyware often uses zero-click exploits that can compromise devices without requiring victims to click links or open files. Apple does not identify which governments orchestrated attacks or confirm whether devices were actually compromised.
Others outside Germany also received the recent threat alert. Radwan Mortada, a Beirut-based filmmaker, said on X that he received a new Apple threat notification, following an earlier spyware attack on his device in 2021. Apple's latest batch of threat notifications reached users in 99 countries, though the source of these attacks remains unclear.
The targeting underscores a growing number of attacks against civil society members. Governments often purchase spyware tools from private vendors known as "mercenary spyware" makers rather than building them internally. Israel's NSO Group sells the controversial Pegasus spyware. Germany's federal law agency BKA reportedly bought access to Pegasus in 2019.