This is major: after a campaign that focused relentlessly on Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server, it has now come to light that the president’s phone is an outdated Fisher-Price model that no longer receives security updates.
Although Trump primarily uses the phone for twitter, and to listen to the funny voices that come out of it, tech experts say such an old model is vulnerable to malware, hacking, and of course, phishing-Price emails.
But press secretary Sean Spicer has downplayed the risks, saying the Fisher-Price phones are actually quite safe, since they’re slightly too large to be a choking hazard.
Trump, who courted controversy this week after hanging up on the Prime Minister of Australia’s 2-year-old daughter, has also defended his choice of phone.
“These guys I’ve been talking to on this phone, they’re smart guys. One of them knows the alphabet- the entire alphabet! Another one- any animal, he knows the sound it makes. All ten animals, he knows every sound. Just let the hackers try and outsmart him. I’d like to see them try. I really would.”
Nevertheless, questions remain about why the phone’s sound clips have recently switched to Russian.
This is the biggest communications-related threat to presidential security since 2007, when George W. Bush was hospitalized after slicing his face with a Motorola RAZR.
