Just call him the crown prince of hacking.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly had his phone hacked after receiving what was apparently an infected video file over WhatsApp from none other than Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2018, sources told The Guardian. An analysis of Bezos' phone reportedly revealed that following a seemingly friendly conversation between the two men, the video file sent by the crown prince corrupted Bezos' phone and made large amounts of data vulnerable, eventually leading to embarrassing leaks.
The Guardian didn't receive word on what may have been pulled from Bezos' phone following the alleged incident, but the news that Saudi Arabia's future king was possibly directly involved with the infiltration is a major revelation in its own right. Saudi Arabia has previously denied targeting Bezos' phone, but previous investigations had determined with "high confidence" that Riyadh was behind the efforts.
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There's another wrinkle to the already-head scratching story, though. It's been reported by The Intercept that the prince chatted regularly on WhatsApp with White House adviser Jared Kushner, who's also President Trump's son-in-law. That's now raising some speculation that those conversations may have taken a similar turn to Bezos. Read more at The Guardian. Tim O'Donnell
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