Was Boris’s phone hacked by Saudi Prince?
BORIS JOHNSON was ‘bombarded’ with ‘emoji-laden’ WhatsApp messages from Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman, sparking fears that the Prime Minister’s phone has been hacked.
The Arab state is at the centre of an international storm over allegations that billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s phone was compromised after he opened a file sent by the Crown Prince’s account on the messaging service.
Mr Bezos owns the Washington Post, which published articles by journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by the Saudi regime in 2018.
Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Mr Johnson has been in regular contact with Bin Salman on WhatsApp after the pair swapped numbers when the PM was Foreign Secretary. The Crown Prince’s endless use of emojis has baffled Mr Johnson and his team. Security sources said the level of contact was ‘worrying’ and that relations with Saudi Arabia were being ‘tested’ severely.
Downing Street refused to comment on whether Mr Johnson had received videos and pictures from Bin Salman on the app. Officials refused to say if Mr Johnson’s phone had been checked by security services, but sources claimed all appropriate action had been taken.
The Saudi kingdom denied Bin Salman was involved in hacking Mr Bezos.
Brian Lord, former deputy director for cyber operations at GCHQ, said: ‘An emoji on its own is not big enough to contain a virus, it has to be something that has to be opened... something the user clicks on, like a video or a picture which contains a virus or malware.
‘The malware is a bit like opening a back door and once open, the hacker can keep going in and out again. It would be like a burglar having your house keys and sneaking in and out, stealing from you without you knowing.’