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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 26 2020, @06:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-not-to-do dept.

What Jeff Bezos Can Teach You About Smartphone Security:

Jeff Bezos might be (much) wealthier than you, but he's not smarter than you—at least, not when it comes to basic smartphone security. As you probably read and laughed at (and then sighed at, after you looked up how much Bezos makes each minute), Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently sent Bezos a video file via WhatsApp. This file actually "contained malware that penetrated Bezos's mobile phone and exfiltrated a large amount of data within hours," describes The Guardian.

[...] As The New York Times notes, it's not even clear whether Bezos opened the video file (and malware) himself, or whether the simple act of receiving it was enough to exploit a vulnerability in WhatsApp. In other words, the simple act of receiving malicious code, buried in an innocent piece of content, is enough. You could do everything you can to not engage with it, but it might not even matter—unless you avoid the message entirely, which is contrary to the point of a messaging app.


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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday January 26 2020, @08:14PM (1 child)

    by looorg (578) on Sunday January 26 2020, @08:14PM (#948981)

    Considering his phone was "hacked" and mine was not I would say I have next to nothing to learn from Jeff about smartphone security. He is now nothing but a potential cautionary tale. I already know, come to think about it I think my mom knows more about smartphone security then Jeff since I told her not to click on crap in emails, not to click on shit I get in the mail (or via WhatsApp or whatever is the cool app these days). I think I learned that about 30ish years ago, probably a lot longer ago but then it was probably not something spreading via messages/mail but say it's a bad idea to leave floppies with the write protection off.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @12:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @12:10AM (#949071)

    Yours was not?

    Citation?

    His was for months before his dedicated security staff caught it.