Apple warns customers targeted in recent spyware attacks

Apple warned customers last week that their devices were targeted in a new series of spyware attacks, according to the French national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-FR). CERT-FR is operated by ANSSI, the National Cybersecurity Agency, and is responsible for preventing and mitigating cybersecurity-related incidents impacting public and critical organizations. According to a Thursday advisory, CERT-FR is aware of at least four instances of Apple threat notifications alerting the company's users about mercenary spyware attacks that have occurred since the beginning of the year. These alerts were sent on March 5, April 29, June 25, and last week, on September 3, to the phone numbers and email addresses associated with the users' Apple accounts. According to Apple, these warnings are also displayed at the top of the page after the user signs in to their account at account.apple.com. "The notifications report highly sophisticated attacks, most of which employ zero-day vulnerabilities or require no user interaction at all," the cybersecurity agency said. "These complex attacks target individuals because of their status or function: journalists, lawyers, activists, politicians, senior officials, members of management committees in strategic sectors, etc. "Receiving a notification means that at least one of the devices linked to the iCloud account has been targeted and is potentially compromised." While CERT-FR didn't share more information on what prompted these alerts, las...