Apple hit back Friday at a Google research report suggesting iPhones may have been targeted by a long-running hacking operation, calling it inaccurate and misleading. Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said in a statement the research released by Google created a "false impression" that large numbers of iPhone users may have been compromised.

Sainz said that contrary to what Google claimed, the incident was a "narrowly focused" attack which affected "fewer than a dozen websites that focus on content related to the Uighur community, an ethnic minority in China. "Regardless of the scale of the attack, we take the safety and security of all users extremely seriously," he wrote.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019