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>Kelly turned his phone into the White House IT department after he said it wasn't working and the software was not updating correctly, according to the report.
by rl3 9y ago
>Kelly turned his phone into the White House IT department after he said it wasn't working and the software was not updating correctly, according to the report.
On the bright side, it's not likely that an APT/nation state actor was responsible. Breaking things is pretty amateur hour.
Then again, maybe his phone sucked and they just wanted him to get one with a better mic/camera. Perhaps whatever compromising selfies were not of sufficient quality.
- williamscales 9y agoIf it was an Android phone they might root it which would prevent updates from applying as those check the integrity of the system partition before applying.
- nathancahill 9y agoAlso possible to prevent a jailbroken iPhone from updating. In fact, it's desirable, so that you maintain your jailbreak.
- chc 9y agoYou think an unaffiliated individual just recreationally hacked the White House Chief of Staff's phone?
- rl3 9y agoMy first guess would be random malware, actually. I'm pretty sure that when nation state actors compromise a high-level target's phone, they avoid breaking things in such obvious fashion.
- eli 9y agoWriting software is hard. Certainly true for government software too.
- ceejayoz 9y agoIt'd be a little funny if it was multiple nation-state actors breaking each others' malware inadvertently.
- makomk 9y agoIf I recall correctly, didn't it come out that the NSA managed to accidentally brick the core router handling internet for the whole of of Syria when trying to hack it?
- dsl 9y agoThat is an unsubstantiated claim from Snowden. CYBERCOM did launch a DDoS attack against North Korea recently, and it is strongly suspected that they have done so previously (like in retaliation to the Sony hack). https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-signed-presidential-directive-ordering-actions-to-pressure-north-korea/2017/09/30/97c6722a-a620-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sporkologist 9y agoIf only there were some kind of governmental office of intelligence or something, that could maintain security of our government's communications. Well, I can dream, can't I.
- willstrafach 9y agoSounds like WHCA's purview.
- EthanHeilman 9y ago>Breaking things is pretty amateur hour. True, but the NSA did accidentally brick the Syrian border routers.
- willstrafach 9y agoDo you have a link with more information? Sounds very interesting.
- EvanAnderson 9y agoIt was alleged by Edward Snowden: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/snowden-nsa-syria-internet-outage-civil-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/snowden-nsa-sy...
- abecedarius 9y agoI wondered if it might've been multiple independent compromises interfering with each other. As you say, a single competent one shouldn't be obvious.