Hired Journalist With Saudi Enemies: The Reason Behind Jeff Bezos Phone Hack

Who are you hiring?  Did you do your due diligence?  I bet Jeff Bezos wishes he had before hiring a journalist to write for his paper who was an enemy of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince.  

 

It turns out the journalist was banned from writing in Saudi Arabia. Jeff Bezos hired him to write for the Washington Post. The journalist began writing and took out his vitriol on Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince.  Well, they don’t take criticism well in that part of the world and had the journalist killed. Then they turned their sites on Bezos by hacking his phone.  

The hack was made possible because in 2018  Jeff clicked on a video file filled with malicious code sent to him from the Saudi Prince’s WhatsApp account after exchanging phone numbers at a California dinner.  The malicious code gave them access to his private messages and image data that was used to blackmail him. The surrounding circumstances led to the announcement of his divorce.