Bezos’s phone reportedly hacked by Saudi prince
WhatsApp message was sent by the crown prince to Bezos months before Khashoggi’s murder
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone hacked in 2018 through a WhatsApp message reportedly sent by the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia several months before the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to The Guardian.
Two UN officials will report on Wednesday that there is enough evidence suggesting that Saudi Arabia hacked Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos’s phone, an allegation the United States should investigate, a person familiar with the matter said, according to Reuters.
A digital forensic analysis found that the encrypted message from Mohammed bin Salman’s number is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated Bezos’s phone.
It is “highly probable” that the intrusion was triggered by an infected video file sent from MBS’s phone to Bezos, according to the report.
The Saudi Arabian Embassy in the United States dismissed the reports on Wednesday morning.
“Recent media reports that suggest the kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’s phone are absurd. We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out,” said the embassy in a message posted on Twitter.
The crown prince and the billionaire were reportedly having what seemed like a friendly conversation on WhatsApp when the file was sent on May 1 of 2018. Large amounts of data were taken from Bezos’s phone within a matter of hours, according to a person familiar with the matter, but it is unknown what exactly was taken from the phone or how it was used.
The New York-based tabloid the National Enquirer published intimate details about Bezos’s private life, including text messages, nine months after the alleged hacking.
The infiltration into Bezos’s phone allegedly took place five months before the murder of Khashoggi, a journalist for The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Bezos.
Digital forensic experts began examining Bezos’s phone after the National Enquirer exposé. The company that owns the National Enquirer claimed that it received the information from the estranged brother of Bezos’s girlfriend.
The investigators, according to The Guardian, found with “high confidence” that the Saudis had managed to “access” Bezos’s phone and had “gained private information” about him.
Bin Salman has been under fire for over a year since the murder of Khashoggi. According to numerous reports, the Saudis were able to listen to Khashoggi and spy on the journalist by using an Israeli spyware known as Pegasus, developed by the Herzliya-based company NSO. United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression David Kaye stated in July that Pegasus was a “paradigmatic example” of private surveillance products and their mobile device hacking capabilities.
An NSO spokesperson said the technology is designed to help save lives and to pursue terrorists possessing encryption capabilities. NSO CEO Shalev Hulio denied in February that Khashoggi was targeted by NSO products and technology.
WhatsApp sued NSO Group in October for allegedly building and selling a hacking platform that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones of at least 1,400 users. A “significant” portion of the known victims are high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents.
Amnesty International has filed a request to revoke NSO’s export license. The primary allegations against NSO are that its Pegasus software has been used by nondemocratic governments to spy on journalists and dissidents, and that the Defense Ministry has failed to carry out proper oversight. This case was filed after Amnesty claimed that NSO’s software was used to spy on its officials by a foreign client of NSO.
The company said it was “shocked and appalled by the story that has been published with respect to alleged hacking of the phone of Mr. Jeff Bezos,” in a statement on its website. “If this story is true, then it deserves a full investigation by all bodies providing such services to assure that their systems have not been used in this abuse. Just as we stated when these stories first surfaced months ago, we can say unequivocally that our technology was not used in this instance.”
The company added, “these type of stories highlight the need for the surveillance community to follow our lead and implement strict Human Rights Policies and to act in a compliant manner.”
Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who investigates extrajudicial killings, has reviewed the findings of the forensic analysis of Bezos’s phone, according to The Guardian.
The UN special rapporteur found “credible evidence” that the crown prince and other senior Saudi officials were responsible for the Khashoggi’s murder. Callamard declined to comment to The Guardian on the alleged Bezos link.
Reuters, Yonah Jeremy Bob and David Dimolfetta contributed to this report.