Smartphones play a key role in the lives of billions of people, holding intimate secrets, financial details and much more.
So it's usually a good idea to keep yours secure with a hard-to-guess code. Kanye West apparently did not get that memo.
During a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, the "Runaway" rapper appeared to unlock his phone with a passcode consisting entirely of zeros.
Needless to say, that is not a particularly strong security key.
Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research at security firm Trend Micro, said that West might not be as vulnerable as the average person, considering West has his own physical security.
"That said, given Mr. West’s high profile and value of his personal reputation, using that simple passcode could result in disastrous consequences if the phone falls into someone else’s hands," Nunnikhoven said in an email.
He added that even the best passcode would be rendered ineffectual if it were captured on national television.
"No matter how strong your passphrase is, if someone watches you type it in, it might as well be 0-0-0-0-0-0," he said.
The video generated plenty of jokes on social media.
A password management firm offered its services to West, and activist Deray Mckesson called for one of West's friends to tell him to change his passcode.
But BuzzFeed News cybersecurity reporter Kevin Collier noted that people tweeting out West's code could conceivably end up violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
"In what is the most wet blanket tweet I will ever write, everyone incredulously repeating Kanye's password is potentially violating the CFAA and in theory could go to prison for up to a decade," Collier tweeted.
The clip also sparked no shortage of Spaceballs references:
