Chinese, Russian spy agencies tapping Donald Trump's personal phone – report

Many believe Hillary Clinton's blunder of using the personal server for exchanging official work emails during her term as the United States Secretary of State, cost her the US Presidency seat against Donald Trump in 2016 Election, but it looks like that Trump hasn't learnt any lessons from it either.

It has come to light that the US President uses three iPhones, two modified (by National Security Agency) models for official work and one a personal one, which is same as used by millions of other common citizens, for a conversation with his private contacts.

Despite repeated requests by intelligence advisors, Trump seems to continue using the phone, which might one day cost him dearly not only to himself but also to national security too, reported The New York Times.

We have come to understand that Donald Trump, after dragging his feet for a year after presiding over the Oval Office, finally gave up his personal Android phone and got himself custom-made iPhones, which as per reports has no camera to take pictures and no microphone, but only receive texts from secured government servers. To make calls, he is instructed to use only the landline of the office.

How China and Russia plan to influence Trump in creating international policy matters?

Trump, despite objection, continues to use personal iPhone to speak with the family, friends and business contacts, which security advisors fear may influence President's work. The news comes in the wake of Trump's trade tariff war with China.

NYT's sources say Chinese government-sponsored spy agencies are monitoring Trump's close business confidantes and even have a detailed profile of them. Like the US, foreign governments like China and Russia are well endowed with cybersecurity technology and are tapping the phones of influential leaders.

Modern era espionage agencies use advanced techniques to intercept communication signals transferred between satellites in space and mobile towers on the ground, in this case, Trump's close affiliates' conversation.

With that information, they plan to get an insight into the US President's state of mind. Also, they plan to learn his behaviour and find out who can sway him.

They also plan to try to get close to the Trump's friends using local Chinese business tycoons and in turn send the Beijing's message and influence Trump to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping more often and eventually, soften his stand in the trade war.

It is believed the Trump's business contacts are unaware of the Chinese tactics and may unknowingly sell ideas and policy prescriptions to the White House, which may be detrimental to the US, but will benefit China.

Russians too are said to be eavesdropping on President Trump. There is no information on the techniques used, but it is said to be less sophisticated compared to China, as Trump has an affinity towards the Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and believe they can influence him in international policy matters.

Both China and Russia are closely looking for things even small details that can be used to talk Trump out of an argument.

On the bright side, Trump is not comfortable exchanging emails on his phone and this apparently rules out any phishing attack, which many believe it to have happened to Hillary Clinton during her stint as the Secretary of the State.

Also, Trump uses the second special iPhone with Twitter and social apps, which works only on a secured Wi-Fi router.