Afraid of heights: The Moral High Ground is a Cliff
Apple has always been proud of its security. In fact, it is part of the brand when you buy one of the company’s products.
When CEO, Tim Cook, was asked about Facebook’s breach of data to Cambridge Analytica last year, he coolly replied: ‘I wouldn’t be in that situation.’
Great quote. The media loved it.
Well he is in that situation now. In an embarrassing admission, Apple has admitted that hackers were capturing iPhone photos, texts and location from hundreds of thousands of devices.
And to make matter worse, it was Google that found out about it. And Apple were slow to admit it.
There are some lessons to be learnt from this.
- Watch those words.Tim Cook is one of the most savvy and astute of the tech company CEOs. He is mature and measured and his glib comment about Facebook was way out of character. Check those scripts and get rid of anything that might sound boastful. A cheap shot will be expensive in the long run.
- Act quickly. Apple was slow to acknowledge the attack although it did credit the Google researchers.
- It will happen to you.If you run a food company, one day you are likely to face a contamination scare, airlines should prepare for crashes and all, even Apple, have a high risk of being hacked.
So before you, your company or your CEO takes the moral high ground and tells the world you’re better than the rest, be careful you don’t fall off the cliff.
