German Lawmakers’ iPhones Targeted by Government-Backed Spyware, Berlin Warns
Germany’s BSI says Bundestag members and other public figures received Apple spyware alerts in November 2026, urging recipients to assume their devices may be compromised. Zero-click exploits can steal messages, location data and other sensitive information.
Germany’s federal cybersecurity agency warned over the weekend that members of the Bundestag and other public figures may have had their iPhones compromised by government-backed spyware, following a wave of threat notifications sent by Apple in November 2026.
The BSI — Germany’s federal cybersecurity office — confirmed it had become aware that parliamentarians and other unnamed individuals had received alerts from Apple indicating their devices may have been targeted. German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Berlin was “taking the incident and the warning very seriously,” though he declined to identify which officials were affected or whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among them.
Apple periodically issues threat notifications to users it believes may have been targeted by spyware capable of stealing messages, location data, and other sensitive information. These attacks frequently rely on zero-click exploits, which can compromise a device without the victim clicking a link or opening a file. Apple does not attribute attacks to specific governments or confirm whether a device was actually breached. For that reason, the BSI advised that anyone receiving such a notification “should therefore assume that their device may have been compromised.”
The alerts were not limited to Germany. Radwan Mortada, a Beirut-based filmmaker who was previously targeted by spyware in 2021, said he received a new notification warning that Apple had detected “another attack against your device.” Apple’s latest batch of notifications reached users in 99 countries.
No specific government or actor has been identified as responsible for the attacks. Spyware of this kind is frequently purchased from private vendors rather than built by governments directly. The best-known supplier is Israel’s NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware. Germany’s own federal law enforcement agency, the BKA, reportedly purchased access to Pegasus in 2019.
The incident highlights the continued use of commercial spyware tools against politicians and civil society figures, and the difficulty in attributing such attacks to specific actors.