Apple has warned users in 99 countries in recent days that their iPhones may have been compromised by commercial spyware of the kind deployed by government intelligence agencies, according to user reports.

The German government over the weekend issued an urgent notice to government figures telling them that if they received one of the notices from Apple, they should assume their device is no longer secure, the reported.

The government reportedly said individuals began receiving the alerts as of Thursday, 29 October.

German officials targeted

“It must be assumed that devices may have been compromised,” Stefan Kornelius, spokesman for chancellor Friedrich Merz, told the .

“The authorities are now working flat out to investigate the circumstances of the incident, as well as to inform and support those affected.”

The alerts are believed to relate to a form of zero-click spyware that only requires a user’s phone number to compromise a device, and German security officials believe it is almost certainly state-backed, the report said.

The unnamed commercial spyware involved has been used by several different governments in the past, German officials told the paper.

The best-known example of commercial spyware is Pegasus, developed by Israel’s NSO Group.

Ragıp Soylu, the Turkey bureau chief for the news outlet Middle East Eye, said this was the third such notice he has received this year.

In the alert, Apple said the 29 October notification was sent to users in 99 countries, according to security researcher Costin Raiu, who said on social media that he had verified the accuracy of notification sent to several people.

According to information shared by Raiu, Apple said in the alert that it does not attribute the attacks to any specific source or geographical region due to the sophistication and worldwide nature of what it calls “mercenary spyware”.

Apple in August altered its alert system to make notices more prominent and to encourage users to take action – such as operating their device in lockdown mode.