Apple Gives Up on Labeling Cyberattacks as ‘State-Sponsored’

Apple dropped the term “state-sponsored” from threat notifications sent to users, first reported by Reuters Thursday. Instead, Apple warned iPhone users in India and 91 countries on Wednesday that they were potential victims of a “mercenary spyware attack,” a term that less directly blames governments behind the attacks.

“Mercenary spyware attack” is Apple’s new, more ambiguous way of telling you a foreign government is behind a cyberattack. As recently as Jan. 15, an Apple support page described these threats as “state-sponsored attacks,” according to the Internet Archive. Now, that Apple page tells you these attacks are “historically associated with state actors, including private companies developing mercenary spyware on their behalf.”

Reuters reports that Apple faced pressure from the Indian government to link breaches to state actors. Senior politicians in India accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of trying to hack their phones in Oct. 2023, right after Apple notified them they were “targeted by state-sponsored attackers.” Meanwhile, India now produces double the iPhones it did last year, becoming an increasingly important ally for Apple.

Another country commonly behind “state-sponsored attacks” is China, which Apple has also been aiming to please recently. China holds the largest smartphone consumer base in the world, but Apple’s iPhone sales in China are down roughly 33% from a year ago, according to Bloomberg. The Chinese Communist Party also recently banned government officials from using iPhones at work. Apple CEO Tim Cook is frequently in China to smooth the critical relationship.

Apple sends these threat notifications a few times a year, and the company notes these are vastly more complicated and cost millions of dollars on its support page. Apple first started sending “state-sponsored” threat notifications in 2021 after controversies sprung up around NSO Group, the Israeli spyware maker behind Pegasus. Most users will never be targeted by such attacks, according to Apple, but they’re often deployed against journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats.

Apple did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

In war, a mercenary is defined as someone “hired for service in the army of a foreign country” but also can mean “serving merely for pay,” according to Webster’s Dictionary. It’s unclear which term Apple means, but both suggest an added layer of removal between hackers and governments.

The switch from “state-sponsored” to “mercenary” seems to be more palatable to the governments behind them. However, “mercenary spyware attack” is also less direct. I’d like to think Apple is changing its language for the sake of accuracy, but it seems more like they’re bending to pressure from foreign governments they so desperately need to work with.