Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince' (theguardian.com)

Article summary

An investigation suggests that Jeff Bezos's phone was hacked in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message from the personal account of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The message allegedly contained a malicious file that infiltrated Bezos's phone, allowing large amounts of data to be exfiltrated. This incident occurred five months before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi government. The hacking of Bezos's phone may be linked to the subsequent publication of his private life details by the National Enquirer.

Main themes

• Saudi Arabia
• Jeff Bezos
• WhatsApp hacking
• National security
• Cyber attacks
• Zero-day exploits

What commenters say

• The hacking of Bezos's phone was likely done using a zero-day exploit in WhatsApp, which could have been obtained by the Saudi government through a broker or developed in-house.
• Facebook and Apple may not be able to outbid state actors or wealthy monarchs in a bidding war for zero-day exploits, making it difficult for them to protect their users.
• The use of zero-day exploits by state actors and other malicious entities poses a significant threat to individual privacy and national security, and companies like Facebook and Apple may not be doing enough to prevent these types of attacks.
• Some commenters believe that Facebook and Apple could offer larger bounties for zero-day exploits to incentivize security researchers to disclose vulnerabilities to them instead of selling to malicious entities.
• Others argue that the economics of zero-day exploits are complex, and that offering larger bounties may not be enough to prevent these types of attacks, as malicious entities may be willing to pay more for exclusive access to these exploits.
• The fact that Bezos's phone was hacked and his private life details were published by the National Enquirer raises questions about the potential for other high-profile individuals to be targeted by similar attacks.
• Some commenters think that companies like Facebook and Apple should be more transparent about the security risks associated with their products and services, and should take more responsibility for protecting their users from these types of attacks.