Before war with Israel: Apple warned Iranian users of Spyware

The Israeli-Iranian war in June apparently preceded targeted spyware attacks on individual Iranian iPhone users-at least Apple warned against it. The manufacturer sent so -called threat notifications to some Iranian users for the first time in the first half of 2025.

This reports Bloomberg Found to research a human rights organization and a security company. Apple’s warnings have gone to “more than a dozen” Iranian, the actual number of those affected are assessed significantly higher. It is the first known example of such experienced spyware attacks on Iranian citizens.

Apple has been sending Spyware warnings for years

With Apple makes threats For several years, individual customers have been aware that they may have been exposed to targeted attacks to add spyware on the iPhone. The warnings are said to have already went to users in over 100 countries.

Such specialized malware mostly uses unknown vulnerabilities, so-called cerodays, and can be inserted partly without the user’s intervention, for example by sending a manipulated iMessage message. In the event of success, the spyware allows the attacker far -reaching monitoring of the communication of the victim, sometimes including activation of the microphone and camera of the smartphone. Apple obviously only sends the warnings when the attacks run directly via the group’s infrastructure – for example, iMessage or iCloud.

In his warnings, Apple originally spoke of “state-funded attacks”, later changed the wording to “mercenary spyware”. Due to the extraordinary effort and costs in the millions, this is “historically associated with state actors,” writes the company, also referring to manufacturers such as the NSO Group and its notorious Pegasus spyware.

Apple pulled back a lawsuit against NSO Group

Apple originally also legally acted against the Israeli NSO Group, but has dropped his lawsuit last autumn. At that time, the group justified the disclosure of details on the own defense strategy within the framework of the court proceedings could ultimately strengthen such providers. Apple also referred to reports that Israel’s government has confiscated sensitive material at the NSO Group-therefore Apple expected not to get any access to decisive documents from the Spyware manufacturer.