Talk About a Security Nightmare
As his senior security executive, how would you deal with this?
Bezo's Phone Hacked
Jeff Bezos hack: Amazon boss's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'
Investigation suggests Washington Post owner was targeted
5 months before murder of Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Phone allegedly began leaking data shortly after being sent a video file
from WhatsApp account linked to Prince Mohammed
Their connection and feud goes back to Bezos' leaked penis selfies
and the Washington Post columnist murder in Istanbul
![](http://d-ddaily.com/images/1-22-20_wsj2.jpg)
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.
Large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos’s phone within hours of the
infected video file was sent from the account of the Saudi heir to Bezos, the
owner of the Washington Post. 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.
A forensic audit of Mr. Bezos’ phone by FTI Consulting, a business advisory
group based in Washington, found with “medium to high confidence” that the
device began leaking data shortly after being sent a video file from the
WhatsApp account linked to Prince Mohammed, the person said, as part of an
operation that
siphoned information for months.
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday denied the allegations. “Recent media reports that
suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’ phone are absurd,”
the Saudi embassy in the U.S. said on Twitter. “We call for an investigation on
these claims so that we can have all the facts out.”
In a lengthy blog post nearly a year ago, Mr. Bezos accused the publisher of the
National Enquirer of trying to
blackmail him by threatening to release embarrassing photos
after the tabloid alleged he had engaged in an
extramarital affair. Mr. Bezos, who owns
the Washington Post, suggested in the post that the photos of him may have been
obtained through illicit means that involved connections between the National
Enquirer’s publisher, American Media Inc., and the Saudi government.
A month later, a security consultant hired by Mr. Bezos alleged in the Daily
Beast that investigators had determined “with high confidence that the Saudis
had access to Bezos’s phone, and gained private information.”
Mr. Mark Sanchez, the
brother of Bezo's girlfriend, acquired
racy text messages the Amazon founder sent
to Lauren Sanchez and sold them to the National Enquirer. Later he denied
sending “the many penis selfies” but declined to comment on whether he provided
photos of Mr. Bezos to the Enquirer.
Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in 2018
in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and the CIA has concluded the act was likely
ordered by Prince Mohammed. The Saudi government has contested the findings.
“The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist
Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles,” Mr. Bezos wrote in
his blog post last year.
Articles originally published on
wsj.com and
theguardian.com