Apple quietly hires renowned iPhone security expert

File photo - A Rose Gold iPhone 7 Plus with dual cameras is shown in Australia's flagship Apple store in Sydney, Sept. 16, 2016. (REUTERS/Jason Reed)

In a blog post today, famous iPhone security expert Jonathan Zdziarski announced that he's going to work for Apple. It's an unusual announcement for a number of reasons -- firstly, people don't normally know or care who's working on Apple's security team -- but Zdziarski is a little different.

Zdziarski is a prominent security consultant who's also been a thorn in Apple's side for years. Most notably, he's called out Apple for shipping a version of iOS without an encrypted kernel, pulled apart Facebook's iOS code to reveal " malware-like" code, and been a vital source of information during Apple's short war with the FBI.

In his blog post, Zdziarski briefly summarized his reasons for the move:

Zdziarski has long been an advocate for customer privacy and strong encryption. Apple's hiring move is likely just a coincidence, a case of a company picking up a talented employee where possible. But in the current climate, going and finding a security engineer who is also well known for his ethical stance on hacking certainly sounds like a message.

This story originally appeared on BGR.