CNBC's Robert Frank and The Verge's Nilay Patel discuss reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was involved in the hack of Jeff Bezos' phone.
Today, the U.N. called for an investigation into allegations that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia personally facilitated a hack on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ mobile phone.
The report, which is based on research Bezos commissioned, alleges that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have personally been involved in a complex hacking campaign against Bezos, which started with a friendly dinner and exchange of phone numbers between the two in 2018.
The report shows how outsiders can monitor seemingly private phone messages. However, while tools like those described in the report exist, they are costly and rarely used against normal citizens. Moreover, it’s worth keeping in mind that Bezos himself commissioned the report and there may be alternative explanations for how information about his personal life leaked.
What happened?
According to the allegations, Bezos’ phone was hacked using malicious software delivered in a WhatsApp message that came directly from Crown Prince Mohammed’s phone in November 2018. The two of them had met and exchanged phone numbers in the spring of that year.
In November of 2018, Bezos allegedly received a text from Crown Prince Mohammed’s WhatsApp number again, this time with a picture of a woman resembling Sanchez “months before the Bezos affair was known publicly,” according to the report. Bezos would later preempt a National Enquirer story on the affair in a post on Medium, which also was the first time he mentioned a possible connection between the hack and Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis apparently targeted Bezos because he owns The Washington Post, which published work from Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident. Saudi agents murdered Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 at the direction of the crown prince, according to the CIA. After initial denials, the Saudis have acknowledged the murder and sentenced several people to death for it, but denied that Crown Prince Mohammed knew about it.
The report says the hack used the software of an Israeli company called NSO Group, which sells a software platform known as Pegasus. This platform allows governments to access internet-connected devices.
The company says it only sells its products to government agencies pursuing information from the devices of criminals and terrorists. Human rights activists, however, have said the software is used much more widely and to target attorneys, journalists and dissidents who oppose various governments that have contracted with NSO Group, an allegation put forth in the report today.
NSO Group has denied its software was involved.
“As we stated unequivocally in April 2019 to the same false assertion, our technology was not used in this instance. We know this because of how our software works and our technology cannot be used on U.S. phone numbers. Our products are only used to investigate terror and serious crime. Any suggestion that NSO is involved is defamatory and the company will take legal counsel to address this.”
Saudi Arabia has called the allegations “absurd” and has also characterized the killing of Khashoggi as a “rogue operation.”
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