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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 22 2020, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the fighting-fortunes dept.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

Exclusive: investigation suggests Washington Post owner was targeted five months before murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone "hacked" in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian.

The encrypted message from the number used by Mohammed bin Salman is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated the phone of the world's richest man, according to the results of a digital forensic analysis.

This analysis found it "highly probable" that the intrusion into the phone was triggered by an infected video file sent from the account of the Saudi heir to Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post.

The two men had been having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when, on 1 May of that year, the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity.

Large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos's phone within hours, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Guardian has no knowledge of what was taken from the phone or how it was used.

The extraordinary revelation that the future king of Saudi Arabia may have had a personal involvement in the targeting of the American founder of Amazon will send shockwaves from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

Previously: Saudi Arabia's Government Allegedly Hacked Into Jeff Bezos's Phone


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @01:38AM (#947158)

    More details are out there on the WWW. Wired has an overview with some additional links.

    I'm just amazed that Bezos aparently used a normal iphone. Wouldn't he have a security staff that customized or booby-trapped his phone against attacks?

  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @02:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @02:26AM (#947177)

    I would have thought that fucker would be eating his own dogfood in form of a fire phone.