Federal Security Service Russia said last Tuesday of this week that it had discovered that the NSA, the United States’ National Security Agency, was using previously unknown malware to exploit alleged backdoor vulnerabilities present in iPhones, Apple’s smartphones.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, better known by its initials, the FSB, is the main heir to the once famous Soviet KGB. According to his version, the malware, allegedly developed by the NSA, allegedly infected thousands of iPhones, including units owned by people living in Russia. The FSB also drew attention to this among the affected smartphones are units belonging to foreign diplomats based in Russia and other countries that were part of the Soviet Union, from Israel, Syria, China and NATO members.

The FSB said in a statement that it “discovered an intelligence operation by US special services using Apple mobile devices” and that The existence of backdoors and corresponding malware comes from collaboration between Apple and the NSA. So far, neither the US security agency nor the bite-sized apple giant has released a reaction or statement in this regard.

An alleged backdoor vulnerability in iPhones was exploited by the NSA for covert data collection. Russia’s foreign minister commented on the FSB’s alleged finding that “US intelligence services have been using IT corporations for decades to collect large-scale data from Internet users without their knowledge.”

At the moment, we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation where, on the one hand, Russia’s credibility is in ruins due to the invasion of Ukraine, while on the other hand, what the FSB has condemned is a scenario that many imagine as acceptable. Who lies here? Whatever the truth, it’s important to keep this in mind neither Russia nor the United States have exemplary resumes as to not implementing spying and mass surveillance programs through the use of backdoors, whether or not such backdoors were intentionally established.

Reuters, which is one of the media outlets that collected the FSB’s complaint about alleged iPhone backdoors being exploited by NSA malware, cited the Belfer Center’s National Cyber ​​Power Index 2022. at Harvard University, which pointed to the United States as the world’s leading cyber power in terms of intent and capability, with China, Russia, the United Kingdom and Australia.