Australian MPs become target of an iPhone hack

Australian government officials have been urged to disable the iMessage feature on their mobile phones after a trick was revealed enabling voters to send text messages to federal MPs.

Both the attorney general George Brandis and the environment minister Greg Hunt were the targets of harassing text messages on Monday as ways to send iMessages to normally unknown mobile numbers was posted across social media. It was found that both Brandis and Hunt's iPhones were linked with their government emails, allowing voters to simply input their email address into an iMessage and contact the MPs directly.

Photos posted on social media showed Hunt receiving a text message that read"Can we do something serious about climate change, mate? Cheers." Hunt replied: "Sorry, who is this? There is no identifier."

Screenshots also showed Brandis received a message that read " Hello Mr Brandis can I pls (sic) see your harmless metadata? It's for security purposes. Don't worry, if you're not doing anything wrong you don't have anything to fear."

Fairfax Media have since revealed that 15 federal senators and 35 federal MPs were able to be contacted via iMessage as they had their iPhones linked with government emails, which are available to the public.

Both Brandis and Hunt have since de-linked their government emails from their iPhones. That preceded a News Ltd. report on Tuesday suggesting all government officials had been asked to do likewise.