Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned members of the Bundestag and federal government officials that their iPhones may have been targeted by mercenary spyware after Apple threat notifications began arriving on October 29. Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger confirmed the warnings on public broadcaster ARD and said the BSI had written to affected people. Authorities have not disclosed how many officials received alerts or identified them publicly, according to TechCrunch’s reporting.
The BSI advised recipients to assume their devices may have been compromised as a precaution, but the alerts do not establish that an attack succeeded. Apple describes its threat notifications as high-confidence alerts that an individual has been targeted by mercenary spyware and says it does not attribute notifications to specific attackers or regions. Neither Apple nor German authorities have identified the spyware vendor, the exploit used or the party behind the targeting.
The German warning follows earlier Apple notification rounds, including an alert to users in 110 countries. Abijita has also reported a separate, forensically confirmed Pegasus infection of a Serbian rector’s iPhone; neither earlier case identifies the actor behind the latest targeting of German officials.
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