Another one of those stories you couldn’t make up.
The month after Rudy Giuliani was named the US president’s cybersecurity adviser, the former mayor of New York queued up outside an Apple Store in San Francisco to get staff to reset his iPhone because he couldn’t remember the passcode.
Giuliani had typed into the wrong code more than 10 times, seizing up the phone and an Apple staffer reset and restored the iPhone 6 using his iCloud backup, according to NBC News which today saw and posted a picture of the internal Apple memo concerning the visit.
The yarn – which has not been disputed – has left security experts stunned. As an adviser on cybersecurity to President Trump and more recently as his personal lawyer, Giuliani has direct access to the White House and, if reports are to be believed, is in charge of a parallel foreign policy effort involving a range of countries, most notably Ukraine.
Or, in other words, Giuliani’s phone is a prime target for surveillance efforts and he simply handed it over to a random Apple employee. Not only that but he couldn’t remember his own passcode, and has backed everything up to Apple’s iCloud. He is a walking security risk.
Not just a security risk. He’s a sprawling, walking liability. Giuliani’s post-mayoral career has been a chaotic web of private consulting gigs, corporate lobbying, and shadowy foreign contacts—all apparently managed from the exact same device he uses to advise the White House.
When you hand an unencrypted backup over to a random retail worker, you aren’t just risking state secrets; you’re exposing the entire messy machinery of a private business empire. It’s no secret that his firm aggressively chases lucrative, emerging industries for consulting fees. Frankly, at this point, the only thing expanding faster than his portfolio of controversial clients is online gambling legal in florida and other rapidly deregulating markets. Mixing that level of chaotic private enterprise with unsecured federal access is a recipe for absolute disaster.
