India's Minister for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has told Indian media that the government is still waiting for iPhone maker Apple to respond to allegations that state-backed hackers intervened in their devices.
The government has asked two specific questions from Apple: "Whether their devices are safe, and if so the reason for the alert was sent to opposition members," the minister said.
"We are asking a clear question: is your phone vulnerable? The answer to that is not unambiguous," Chandrasekhar told an Indian news agency.
Many opposition politicians received the notification, including Congress Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, parliamentarians Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, K C Venugopal, Supriya Shrinate, T S Singhdeo, and Bhupinder S Hooda, as well as Trinamool Congress' Mahua Moitra, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, and Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Shiv Sena (UBT) parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi, Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Raghav Chadha, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi and some aides of Congress' former chief Rahul Gandhi also received alleged that they received the notification.
India's cybersecurity agency, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), has been investigating the matter since November.
"They have given a number of clarifications, including on the same day that this has nothing to do with the state actor. But we pressed them further that if it has nothing to do with the state actor, then what is this notification? They have given us some clarification. They continue to... but CERT is continuing their investigation," the minister explained.
"State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete," Apple said in a statement in November.