Russia accuses the United States of a cyber attack on thousands of Apple devices

Russia’s Federal Security Service (formerly the KGB) today said it did uncovered US espionage activities which were carried out by installing a virus in the mobile devices of the Apple company.

“The FSB together with the Russian Federal Protective Service have discovered spying activities of the intelligence services carried out through Apple-branded mobile devices,” the service said in a statement.

According to Russian intelligence, the security services have detected anomalies “characteristic only for Apple mobile phone users caused by the operation of a previously unknown malicious program who exploited vulnerabilities provided by the manufacturer” of these devices.

“The contagion of several thousand phones of this brand has been ascertained. In addition to national customers, we have detected the contagion of foreign numbers and customers who used sim cards belonging to diplomatic missions and Russian embassies”said the FSB.

This type of contagion has been detected in several NATO countries and the post Soviet blocas well as Israel, Syria and China, Russian intelligence noted.

“In this way, the information obtained by the Russian intelligence services proves the close cooperation of the American company Apple with American intelligence, particularly with the US National Security Agency.“, the FSB noted.

This confirms, added Russian intelligence, that “the stated policy of respecting the confidentiality of personal data of users of Apple devices do not respond to reality“.

“The company offers US intelligence services a wide range of possibilities to screen anyone of interest to the White House, including its partners anti-Russian actions and its own citizens“, concluded the FSB.

In Greece, cyber attack against secondary school children

The Greek Ministry of Education reported that it was the victim of a cyber-attack, noting that it was the largest in the country’s history, the aim of which was to disable a centralized learning platform final exams.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the platform occurred for the second day in a row on Tuesday. The attack hit computers from 114 countries, causing cuts and delays in secondary exams, but without crippling the system, according to the ministry.

The hacks have given rise to a judicial investigation ordered by a prosecutor of the Supreme Court, who will make use of the help of the division of police cybercrime.

“It is the most significant attack ever carried out against a Greek public or government organization,” the education ministry said, describing Monday and Tuesday’s incidents as “large-scale and long-lasting”.

Secondary school leaving exams in Greece are administered through an online platform known as the Subject Bank, designed to set up a uniform standard throughout the country.

The hacks left students waiting in classrooms for hours before exams began and sparked a political controversy, following an inconclusive general election earlier this month. A provisional government was appointed before new elections on June 25, in which the outgoing conservative party, New Democracy, starts as the favorite for re-election.

“All we have so far is an arrogant abdication of responsibility by the New Democracy government, which for four years has failed to take adequate digital safeguards to protect the Subject Bank platform and ensure that school exams take place without problems,” said Popi Tsananidou, a spokesman for the main left-wing opposition party, Syriza.