Apple on Friday slammed a recent Google report claiming that threat actors may have hacked into thousands of iPhones via an “indiscriminate” years-long campaign involving a number of malicious websites. According to Google, merely visiting one of the websites could have resulted in device exploitation along five different attack chains involving a total of 12 separate security flaws, including some previously undislosed (zero-day) vulnerabilities
However, Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz said the report created a “false impression” in terms of the number of users that were targeted. While the Google report implied that it had uncovered a widespread effort to target iPhone users, Apple described the campaign as a “narrowly focused” effort affecting “fewer than a dozen websites that focus on content related to the Uighur community, an ethnic minority in China.” Last week, reports by TechCrunch and Forbes also found that the campaign was part of a Chinese state-backed effort to target the oppressed Uyghur community. Sainz emphasized that Apple “fixed the vulnerabilities in question in February — working extremely quickly to resolve the issue just 10 days after we learned about it.”
Read more: Apple: Security Report on iPhone Hack Created ‘False Impression’