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, according to a person familiar with the matter. One observer said the alleged targeting of Bezos reflected the ‘personality-based’ environment in which the crown prince operates. Digital forensic experts started examining Bezos’s phone following the publication last January by the National Enquirer of intimate details about his private life. Khashoggi’s critical columns about Mohammed bin Salman and his campaign of repression against activists and intellectuals rankled the crown prince and his inner circle.

Source: The Guardian January 21, 2020 21:00 UTC