Boris Johnson risks national security and his own safety by using an unsecured private phone, an ex-No10 aide says.
The sleaze-hit technophobe won’t use an encrypted device issued to him by security advisers.
Instead he has continued to use the personal phone he has used for 10 years, leaving him open to hacking by spies, malicious interlopers – and yet more humiliating leaks.
Security expert Philip Ingram said: “This clearly poses a security risk. If he’s using a device which is not under Government control then there could be apps which could compromise the data on the device.
"He will 100% be targeted by hostile intelligence services like the Russians and the Chinese.”
New PMs are meant to switch to secure iPhones once they enter No10.
It is standard practice to give ministers and senior civil servants encrypted mobiles and laptops.
It is understood ex-PM Theresa May enforced a strict policy that official business be done on secure Government-issue hardware.
But sources say “technological dinosaur” Mr Johnson insisted on keeping his old phone.
A former No10 aide told the Sunday Mirror: “Everyone in the Western hemisphere has the PM’s personal number.
"He’s using the same phone he had before becoming PM. But there’s a difference between being the Mayor of London and Prime Minister.”
Mr Johnson’s former mistress and cybersecurity expert Jennifer Arcuri urged him to take more care years ago, texting him: “Hey! We HAVE to set up a VPN for you to encrypt your phone and devices. I have to make u secure!”
Last week texts between Mr Johnson and vacuum cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson sent during the first wave of the pandemic were made public.
No10 briefed that Dominic Cummings was responsible for the leak.
The ex-aide furiously denies that.
A source revealed the Dyson texts would have been shared between 20 to 30 senior figures including Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Instead of focusing on what matters to people, they are arguing about who leaked what and privileged access to those who had the PM’s number.”
The secure black phones dished out in Whitehall have layers of encryption so they are almost impossible to hack.
Instead of texts and WhatsApp they use Signal, whose messages self-destruct in as little as five seconds.
No10 said of the phone debacle: “We’re not getting into this.”
Scandals have abounded since Boris Johnson moved into No 10
Day one began with a lie, that there’d be a plan to fix crumbling social services within 100 days.
The onset of Covid saw the PM’s refusal to take it seriously and the shameful treatment of care home residents.
Contracts for Tory pals deepened a scandal over PPE supplies.
Then £36bn was wasted on the failed test and trace scheme run by Matt Hancock’s horse-racing pal Dido Harding.
The boss of Hancock’s local pub got a £30m deal to supply glass vials for Covid test samples.
Dominic Cummings then made a mockery of restrictions with his “eye test” drive.
Questions were raised whether the PM was “following the science” when the first lockdown was too late to save up to 20,000 lives.
In March we had “Wallpapergate” over hundreds of thousands being spent doing up No10 to Carrie Symond’s expensive tastes.
A rift between her and Cummings led to the top aide’s exit.
Now, against the backdrop of the Cameron lobbying furore, Cummings is set to spill the beans on the PM’s Covid mishandling in front of a joint Health and Science select committee investigation into the pandemic next month.
