AppleInsider Staff
Days before Apple is set to meet U.S. prosecutors in court over a contentious encryption fight involving an iPhone linked to last year's San Bernardino terror attack, a report on Friday claims the company has poached Amazon's vice president of information security George Stathakopoulos.
Citing inside sources, Reuters (via Fortune) reports Stathakopoulos has been at work at Apple for about one week heading head up the company's corporate security operation, a position similar to the one he left behind at Amazon. At Apple, Stathakopoulos answers to CFO Luca Maestri and is responsible for securing corporate computers used to design and develop products and software, as well as systems storing sensitive customer data, the report said.
While the hire has not yet been confirmed, the publication does provide circumstantial evidence supporting its claims. A reporter who called Apple's switchboard asking to speak with Stathakopoulos was connected to a person who answered, "George's office," Fortune said.
According to Stathakopoulos' LinkedIn page, which still lists Amazon as his current employer, the security expert worked to "protect Amazon and its customers" against digital threats and directed the e-commerce giant's IT infrastructure.
Prior to joining Amazon in 2010, Stathakopoulos worked at Microsoft as an engineer, then as general manager of product security, a post that put him in charge of the Microsoft Security Response Center and Global Security Strategy & Diplomacy. Leading the two high-level teams required cooperation with governments on technical security issues and policy, the LinkedIn bio says. It is not clear if Stathakopoulos will be putting any of those skills to work at Apple, a company currently embroiled in a contentious court battle over consumer encryption rights.
Apple is challenging a federal court order compelling its assistance in unlocking an iPhone tied to San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook. The Justice Department has requested Apple architect an iOS variant susceptible to brute-force attacks in hopes that investigators can access and extract potentially vital information from the device. The company is resisting, arguing government overtures not only amount to overreach, but could set dangerous precedent for future investigations. Apple and government prosecutors will meet in court next Tuesday.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
William Gallagher
16 Comments
I hope Apple invests a couple of billion to buy the best lobbyists available in Washington. Without covering all the political bases, the government will keep chipping away at Apple until they lose in court or there is ultimately a big change to the existing laws by Congress which will disfavor Apple and all other security dependent American companies.
just read a piece that said Apple has 750 Million active credit cards/accounts.. i assume Amazon has at least that.
I'm somewhat surprised that nobody has hacked them yet (Google too).
even if you could deface the home page for 10 minutes that'd be a huge win for the perp - impossible for Aapl/Goog/Amzn to keep off the interwebs - it simply hasn't happened.
I'm using his last name as my password.
This is the next logical step for Apple in light of all the FBI news.
Based on Apple's history when facing anything that in any way threatens their secrecy, such as the FBI's recent full-court press to literally wreck their iOS integrity, I believe this is a logical response.
In other words, Tim Cook is doing what he has in the past - 'doubling down on security'.
In addition, hiring George Stathakopoulos makes perfect sense in light of recent reports that Apple is extending their encryption to their iCloud service - literally making it end-to-end, making it literally impossible for them to "help" the FBI going forward to access that data as they have in the past - without the owner's password.
FBI director James Comey's aggressive authoritarian attacks against Apple and other tech companies since taking the job in 2013 has done incalculable damage to the FBI's reputation. Making it almost impossible for any CEO to trust, much less want to "cooperate" with the FBI going forward. This is bad for the FBI and bad for the country. Frankly, I think Comey should resign.