New Delhi (CNN Business) Apple says Google researchers who reported vulnerabilities in iPhone software that potentially gave hackers access to the devices are creating a "false impression" and "stoking fear."

Cybersecurity researchers at Google's Project Zero detailed the vulnerabilities in a blog post late last month, describing a campaign to exploit "iPhones en masse" through a small number of hacked websites over a period of "at least two years."

Apple AAPL disputed those claims in a statement released Friday.

"The sophisticated attack was narrowly focused, not a broad-based exploit of iPhones 'en masse' as described," the company said. It said the hacked websites used to exploit the vulnerabilities numbered fewer than a dozen and mainly featured content related to the Uyghur community, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group from China's western Xinjiang region.

"Google's post, issued six months after iOS patches were released, creates the false impression of 'mass exploitation' to 'monitor the private activities of entire populations in real time,' stoking fear among all iPhone users that their devices had been compromised," Apple said. "This was never the case."

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