The Saudi Arabian government has denied hacking the phone of Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and Washington Post, after a private investigation set up by Bezos last year proved with almost certainty that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was responsible for the hack.
According to the bombshell investigation results, first released by The Guardian, forensic digital analysis concluded that Bezos’ phone was compromised after Bezos received a malicious video file from a phone number used by Mohammed bin Salman, and immediately “large amounts of data” were extracted from Bezos’ phone within hours.
The National Enquirer, a US tabloid, weeks later gained access to private texts Bezos exchanged with a woman named Lauren Sanchez, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. After the news broke, Bezos had to break up with his wife making her a billionaire in the process after she was settled.
According to the Guardian Newspaper, Bezos became targeted by Saudi Arabia following the Washington Post’s negative coverage and reporting of the Saudi Arabian government and it should be remembered Jamal Khashoggi who was allegedly killed by the Saudi Arabian government 5 months after Bezos’ hack was a journalist with the Washington Post.
The death of Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Turkey was later admitted by Saudi Arabia as ‘a mistake’, and resulted in worldwide backlash against the crown prince, who has been trying to create investment in the region and make the country more liberal to encourage tourism.
The Saudi embassy in Washington, reacting to the news said in a statement posted online Wednesday that “recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’ phone are absurd.”
“We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out,” the embassy added.
Gavin de Becker, a security consultant working for Bezos said in an opinion piece published by the Daily Beast in March 2019;
“Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information,”
Saudi government’s role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is still in the mind of the world and the recent revelations of hacking Bezos’ phone paint Mohammed Bin Salman, the future king of Saudi Arabia in more bad light.
At the time of his death in October 2018, Khashoggi, a Washington post columnist was a dissident who had been critical of the Saudi government..
