Iphones: US accessed thousands of iPhones in spy plot: Russia – Times of India

MOSCOW: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had uncovered a US National Security Agency (NSA) plot using previously unknown malware to access specially made so-called backdoor vulnerabilities in Apple phones. The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said several thousand Apple phones had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers. Neither Apple nor the NSA immediately responded to emailed requests for comment.
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 US agency responsible for US cryptographic and communications intelligence and security. Both the Kremlin and Russia’s foreign ministry pointed to the significance of the matter. “The hidden data collection was carried out through software vulnerabilities in US-made mobile phones,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The US intelligence services have been using IT corporations for decades in order to collect largescale data of Internet users without their knowledge,” theministry said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said all officials in the administration knew that gadgets such as iPhones were “absolutely transparent”. “Using them for official purposes is unacceptable and prohibited,” Peskov said, adding that officials were free to use iPhones for private, non-official communication.