Apple Hires New Corporate Security Head To Secure Corporate Assets

Apple has appointed George Stathakopoulos as VP of Corporate Information Security amidst its battle with the US government over the demand to crack an iPhone.

Apple, amidst a pitched war with the American government over the desire of the law enforcement agency to unlock iPhones, has recruited a new security official to supervise its corporate digital protections, people aware of the matter stated.

The American consumer electronics manufacturer has hired George Stathakopoulos who served as Amazon’s VP of Information Security and prior to that as General Manager of Product Security at Microsoft Corporation.

Mr. Stathakopoulos has been appointed as VP of corporate information security. Apple refused share views on the hiring of the new executive, but a reporter who called the Cupertino based company and asked to talk with him. He didn’t immediately responded.

Stathakopoulos reports to the CFO of Apple and will be tasked to protect corporate assets, like computers used to develop and design products, software and data regarding customers. The heads of software and hardware of the tech company will look after the usage of Apple products.

Stathakopoulos started to serve the organization a week ago after he worked at Amazon since 2010, which is highly reputed amongst security professionals. Prior to that, he used to work for over 8 years as Microsoft Corporation’s GM, which is viewed as an organization with enhanced security over the past 15 years.

The new position indicates an increased concentration on safety issues at the tech organization. Apple is locked in an unprecedented battle with the United States Department of Justice, which wants it to develop software to access data from a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c.

The company and a number of its partners in the tech industry have argued that compelling the organization to develop such software would set a precedent, which would be applied to the rest of the cases and organizations. Prosecutors state they have focused on only one phone.

Apart from that battle, the company should ward off efforts to compromise its protections by hackers keen to get details about its corporate proprietary details, Apple software and customers.

Historically ransomware, viruses and other Internet era’s malicious byproducts have been a larger threat to Android phones and Windows computers but the grown market share of Apple products has turned them into a more popular targets.

In other news, Bloomberg reported the US high valued organization is preparing to launch a smaller sized iPhone. On March 21 2016, CEO Tim Cook will present the new device, trying to attract holdouts to upgrade themselves with a new smartphone.