Forensic experts have concluded after their investigation that there exists a direct link between the Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman and attempts to hack into the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezoz’ phone in 2018.
In the report, accessed by Financial Times, it was revealed that an encrypted video sent on whatsapp from the Saudi crown prince to the Amazon founder led to data from the latter’s phone being transmitted back to Saudi Arabia and shared widely.
The amount of data hacked from the phone was in the dozens of gigabytes, compared to the few hundred kilobytes daily average in the months before the video file was sent, the analysis found.
Also Read: Meet India’s R-Day chief guests; and why it matters
People involved in the process also suspect that this development, led to a story of the Amazon founder’s alleged extra marital affair being published in a US tabloid.
The crown prince and Jeff Bezoz met during the former’s visit to the US and exchanged numbers. The prince wanted to promote investments into the kingdom.
It appears that the relations between the two soured after the killing of Jamal Kashoggi, a critic of the Saudi royal family who was also a regular columnist with the Washington Post, one of the business ventures of Jeff.
It was after this that the data appears to have been stolen and Jeff was personally targeted by Internet trolls associated with the royal prince.
The crown prince immediately sent a text to jeff which read:
“Jeff all what you hear or told to it’s not true and its matter of time tell you know the truth, there is nothing against you or Amazon from me or Saudi Arabia”.
It has been reported that Jeff will be cooperating with the cyber experts to settle this issue.
This entire matter has drawn a note of strong condemnation from the Saudi authorities. They said:
“Saudi Arabia does not conduct illicit activities of this nature nor does it condone them. We request the presentation of any supposed evidence and the disclosure of any company that examined any forensic evidence so that we show it is demonstrably false”.
This will also be an issue for the crown prince who is initiating reforms and is trying to move the royal kingdom, out of the oil crisis. He is trying to attract investments in varying fields into the kingdom. This will be a challenge for the authorities.