Explained: What are the Apple Threat notifications received by opposition leaders on their iPhones

Leaders of several opposition parties today revealed that they had received a threat notification alert on their iPhones. The alert notification read: “State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone”. In case you are wondering what are these threat notifications and why users get them, here we explain about them in detail:

What are Apple Threat notifications?

First things first, the majority of iPhone users across the world will never get such alerts.The threat notification alerts are sent to users “because of who they are or what they do.” In other words, political leaders, journalists, activists are among those who can get these notifications.
The threat notifications are designed to inform and assist users who may have been targeted by state-sponsored attackers. “Unlike traditional cybercriminals, state-sponsored attackers apply exceptional resources to target a very small number of specific individuals and their devices, which makes these attacks much harder to detect and prevent,” explains Apple on one of its support page.
Since these attacks are coordinated by states, they are quite complex and cost millions of dollars to develop and often have a short shelf life.

How to know if the threat notification is real

For starters, Apple threat notifications will never ask you to click any links, open files, install apps or profiles, or provide your Apple ID password or verification code by email or on the phone. To verify that an Apple threat notification is genuine, sign in to yourappleid.apple.com. If Apple has sent you a threat notification, it will be clearly visible at the top of the page after you have signed in.
General tips to stay safe from all kinds of malware
Apple has shared some tips on its support page so that users continue to protect themselves from cybercriminals and consumer malware