A cybersecurity firm believes an iPhone hacking campaign occurred and targeted five high-profile Americans in artificial intelligence (AI), media and politics. Included in this list are former members of the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign, according to what two individuals familiar with this investigation told NBC News. 

The preliminary investigation was conducted by iVerify, a company specializing in iPhone cybersecurity. According to the organization, it has uncovered evidence of a potential hacking campaign, although the actor behind the operation remains unknown. The organization stated that a European government official may have also been targeted in this campaign.

The findings suggest that last year, a malicious actor installed spyware to collect data on targets without their knowledge. Out of approximately 50,000 iPhones examined, only six showed signs of exploitation. 

While iVerify claims a “significant amount of circumstantial evidence” was found to support claims of a hacking campaign, Apple has stated otherwise.

In an email statement, Ivan Krstić, the head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture, said, “We’ve thoroughly analyzed the information provided by iVerify, and strongly disagree with the claims of a targeted attack against our users. Based on field data from our devices, this report points to a conventional software bug that we identified and fixed in iOS 18.3.”

The cybersecurity firm has stated that it did not find direct evidence of the presence of malicious software on analyzed phones; however, it discovered evidence of installation and subsequent deletion of said software. If the findings are accurate, NBC News states that “it would be a major escalation in the back-and-forth between cyberspies and the security engineers who try to stop them.”