Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-In started a probe over the opposition's complaints on iPhone hacking attempts and sent notice to Apple, said IT Secy Krishnan on Thursday. CERT-In is the national agency responsible for responding to cybersecurity threats like hacking and phishing.

Indian IT Minister Vaishnaw on Thursday said that CERT-In, the computer emergency response team based in New Delhi, had started the probe, and added that "Apple confirmed it has received the notice for investigation".

IT Minister Vaishnaw had said that iPhone manufacturer, Apple issued similar alerts in other 150 countries as well and termed them incomplete and inaccurate data, and that some could be "false alarms".

Earlier this week, several Opposition ministers including Rahul Gandhi, Mahua Moitra, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Raghav Chadha, Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, and Sitaram Yechury claimed that they had received Apple alerts warning them of state-sponsored attackers trying to hack their iPhones.

Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of trying to hack into opposition politicians' mobile phones after some lawmakers shared screenshots on social media of a notification quoting the iPhone manufacturer as saying: "Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID".

A senior minister from Modi's government also said he had received the same notification on his phone. Apple said it did not attribute the threat notifications to "any specific state-sponsored attacker", adding that "it's possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected".