Findings from an investigation conducted by the United Nations published on Wednesday apparently implicates Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as being involved in the hacking of Jeff Bezos' smartphone in 2018. The report claims that the Amazon founder's phone was hacked using a WhatsApp message that came from the account of the Saudi prince.
According to sources close to the investigation, the report will show detailed forensic findings that will apparently prove true Bezos' previous allegations of the Saudi regime's continued cyberattack against him and his companies. The conflict between the two reportedly stemmed from a series of disputes between the Saudis, US President Donald Trump, and Bezos' National Enquirer tabloid newspaper.
UN officials previously revealed that Bezos' smartphone was compromised after it was infected with malware attached to a WhatsApp message from Mohammed's account. Investigators had also concluded that the malware was able to extract a massive amount of data from Bezos' smartphone, although the exact data that was extracted has yet to be determined.
A report from the Guardian published a report on Tuesday, revealing that Bezos and Mohammed were engaged in a friendly online char using WhatsApp on May 1, 2018. During this time, the Saudi Prince allegedly sent malicious software to Bezos through a video file. Since the hack, Bezos had openly accused the Saudi government of intentionally launching online attacks with the intent of harming him and his company.
A new documentary called "The Dissident," which is scheduled to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this Friday, claims that the malware used to hack Bezos' phone was a hacking program called Pegasus. The malware essentially allows attackers to secretly extract past and future data from any device.
The hacking attempts had occurred right after The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, had relentlessly covered the murder of one of the paper's columnists, Jamal Khashoggi. Following the murder and the newspaper's coverage, Bezos became the target of criticism by Saudi-based online trolls. Khashoggi was a Saudi dissident who had fled to the United States prior to being hired by the Washington Post to write columns.
As for the UN's report, there are those that have openly criticized its accuracy, with some claiming that the organization had relied on work done by consultants hired by Bezos. The Saudi government has also repeatedly denied Bezos' accusations, claiming that the Kingdom being involved in hacking the billionaire's phone let alone its crown prince being involved is "absurd."
