Former President Barack Obama made headlines when he took office in 2009 was issued Blackberry mobile phone, though after undisclosed modifications were made to strengthen its security features.
The case is not the same with President Trump who could be using an unsecured and easily hackable Android-based smartphone.
The New York Times reported that Trump was apparently keeping the phone near him and using it to tweet from the White House while watching television.
“These are the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used in my life,” said Trump said in a telephone interview.
“The world’s most secure system,” he added, laughing. “The words just explode in the air.” What he meant was that no one was listening in and recording his words.
Trump’s use of an unsecured phone comes after an election filled with hacks of the personal communications of Democratic political figures and organizations.
Security experts have said that individual phones are easy to hack for anyone motivated enough.
“If I can get in and clone your phone, I got you. You won’t even know it,” Larry Johnson, a retired US Secret Service agent who now works as chief security officer at CyberSponse told CNet News.
The Secret Service issued Trump a secured phone for his inauguration, but that phone would have very limited capabilities.
Obama was only permitted to email a small group of friends and senior aides via the device. He borrowed an aide’s iPhone when he posted his first tweet.
Obama used phone to access his official Twitter account so tweeting from a phone is not unheard of from a president.
However, it is dangerous to have any unsecured phone around as it would be extremely easy to hack and intercepted.
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