New Delhi: Apple is looking into the triggers for the threat notifications that went out to several iPhone users in India, including more than 20 high-profile people such as some members of parliament and their staff, geopolitical researchers and journalists. The US smartphone company will examine to see how, where, and when did the alerts go out as the allegations from individuals have taken on a sensitive nature, industry executives directly aware of the matter told ET.“There is a bit of a difference between a regular individual seeing their iPhone coming under attack and a political leader claiming it is state-sponsored espionage and snooping,” one of the industry executives said.A statement from Apple said it does not attribute the notification to any specific state-sponsored attacker, adding that it is possible that some may be false alarms, while some attacks may even evade detection.However, executives believe that the onus is on Apple to clarify whether this was a false alarm or the threat was real. “In this case, what is the accuracy of the detection, that needs to be checked. But it’s not out of the realms of possibility. If it is a false alarm, Apple will have to figure out and say it is a false alarm. The onus might have to be on Apple to clarify that because it was Apple which sent out the notification,” an executive said.The company’s support page adds ambiguity to the claims in the threat notifications, stating that a state-sponsored attack is only a possibility, pointed out experts.“This kind of technology and resources needed to hack into Apple’s systems is not available with everyone. The kind of people who can afford it are not someone trying to get someone’s bank account details. When 150,000 people in an area are targeted, it is one thing, but when only some people are targeted, it is a different thing,” another executive said.Apple didn’t respond to ET’s emailed queries.The notifications to the Apple users started late on Monday night and continued on Tuesday. Most of these users are leaders of political parties of the opposition such as Trinamool Congress Party’s Mohua Moitra, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and Indian National Congress’ Pawan Khera.Google also sends alerts to individuals when it believes government-backed attackers are trying to access the account of its users. But in this case, no Android user reported receiving such notifications.“The accusations are at a different level. Once there is a complaint, there is a process. It will be looked into, and verified but it will take a little bit more time. Someone trying to steal a bank password is a different thing, but the accusations in this case are far more grave — saying it is by the government, saying it is snooping, saying it is against democracy, those things take on a different meaning,” said an executive.The iPhone maker is a major proponent of privacy and security in cyberspace, and claims to have a superior track record in protecting the same. “Apple has always claimed it has a superior track record. But if there is an attempt made, it would be remiss if the platform is not made aware of it or if it doesn’t notice. Otherwise, what is the point? There have to be levels of security. If there is a concerted effort to break the security, then like any good security system, the platform owner will get to know that there has been an attempt,” one of the executives said.While Apple did not reveal how exactly it came to know about possible state-sponsored attacks, the executives alluded that technology is quite advanced for Apple to know, and notify users because iPhones are generally connected to a unique Apple ID associated with a phone number and email address.“You will remember the FBI incident which happened many years back when Apple said it can’t give the FBI a backdoor entry because there is no backdoor entry. But there have been players who made attempts. We are all aware of who those companies are. It is an open secret some of these companies are subscribed by various governments across the world. You can connect the invisible dots, but right now there is too much speculation and conjecture,” said a person.