The data suggests that millions of secret tracking requests emanated from Saudi Arabia over a four-month period beginning in November 2019. The tracking requests, which sought to establish the US location of Saudi–registered phones, appeared to originate from Saudi’s three biggest mobile phone companies. The data shows requests for mobile phone location data that were routed through the decades-old SS7 global messaging system, which allows mobile operators to connect users around the world. But excessive use of such messages is known in the mobile telecoms industry to be indicative of location tracking. In January the Guardian revealed that the Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s mobile phone was “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of Prince Mohammed.

Source: The Guardian March 29, 2020 13:30 UTC