Apple Says Uighurs Targeted In IPhone Attack

(RTTNews) - Apple Inc. (AAPL) said that China's Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority group considered a security threat by China, were targeted in the recent iPhone hacking.

In a blog post, the iPhone-maker took issue with some of the findings released by Google researchers last week that publicized vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS operating system, noting that Google's disclosure came six months after Apple had patched them. Apple claimed that Google's research created "the false impression" of a "mass exploitation" and that the attacks were only operational for two months, not two years, as first implied by Google.

"The attack affected fewer than a dozen websites that focus on content related to the Uighur community. Regardless of the scale of the attack, we take the safety and security of all users extremely seriously," Apple said.

In what was a strong rebuke of Google's findings, Apple said that the "sophisticated attack" did not target iPhones "en masse."

Google noted last week that "simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant. We estimate that these sites receive thousands of visitors per week.