Retired US general Colin Powell doesn't trust that his e-mail is secure. He admitted this during a keynote address at Citrix Synergy 2017 in Orlando, Florida.
"I've been hacked twice. And both times I've had a forensic examination done. I've had double factor authentication and I've had all kinds of barriers in the way but they still got in and the forensic guys can't find out why.
"They kept giving me new things to do with my e-mail to protect it, but I no longer have confidence in being able to protect it right now."
So instead, he changed his lifestyle and for secure communications uses a fax machine or encrypted texts, using e-mail strictly for housekeeping.
"I've told the world you don't have to hack me, just ask me and I'll give it to you because there is nothing sensitive on there anymore."
He also uses the telephone, which he said "still works as long as someone is not bugging it, which usually they are not, sometimes they are, you don't know".
The retired US general and former secretary of state spoke about US foreign policy, his views on immigration and education, and also weighed in on the role of cyber security professionals to protect systems against rising cyber threats.
"I'm more concerned about financial systems being hacked than I am about my e-mail being hacked, or the kind of political hacking that goes on. Financial systems, communication systems and energy systems - all of them are at great risk and all of them need to be protected by the work you are doing," he told the crowd.
"Information and technology and communications have always been an essential part of my military career and my life. Any success I have had always rested on the ability to move information around rapidly, effectively and to make sure it gets to where it is supposed to be.
"In this current environment where cyber security is such an issue, we don't know entirely what is secure and what is not. That is why this conference is so important and why the kinds of technology you are coming up with is so vital."
Over-classifying
Powell also warned against the mistake of "over-classifying things", saying the US government needs to be smart about what it classifies and what it puts on paper.
"The national archives and records administration likes to keep records of everything. But if they kept records on every tweet that has gone out from the White House or all government officials, it would fill every warehouse in Washington within a year and it would almost become irrecoverable."
He said security was always extremely important to the work he did, but at the same time it was important not to have security be so tight that those lower down the chain are not getting access to the information they need.
"One of the challenges we are all facing now, and one I faced when I became secretary of state, is how to make sure you have an information system that is getting the information to where it has to be, when it is needed, in order to be actionable.
"Make sure you are not cluttering the whole system by over-classifying things. And by making sure you have a system that will make that differentiation. But also that you have leaders that you trust well enough so that they can make judgements."
Share