Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Photo by Ralf Hirschberger/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Two United Nations experts are calling on the US government to investigate whether the Saudi crown prince sent government-acquired spyware to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' smartphone.
A forensic analysis has found with "medium to high confidence" that a WhatsApp account from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent the spyware in May 2018, UN Special Rapporteurs Agnes Callamard and David Kaye said on Wednesday.
"The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr.
Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia," the two human rights expert said in a statement.
Bezos owns The Washington Post, which published columns from journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In October 2018, Khashoggi was murdered in a Saudi consulate in Turkey after writing pieces critical of the Saudi prince.
Although Prince Mohammed has denied any involvement with the killing, the UN experts claim in today's statement that the Saudi government has been secretly waging a "massive online campaign" to discredit The Washington Post while taunting Bezos.
Today, Bezos of himself and others at an Istanbul memorial for Khashoggi, captioning it simply "#Jamal."
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos)
"According to the forensic analysis, following the hacking of Mr.
Bezos' phone, the Crown Prince sent WhatsApp messages to Mr.
Bezos, in November 2018 and February 2019, in which he allegedly revealed private and confidential information about Mr.
Bezos' personal life that was not available from public sources," the experts go on to say.
Among the messages was a single photograph of a woman resembling the person Bezos was having an extramartial affair with at the time months before the relationship became public.
The photo was accompanied by a "sardonic caption."
The forensic analysis concludes that the Pegasus spyware from an Israeli surveillance company called NSO Group was likely behind the hacking.
The same spyware has been known to exploit vulnerabilities in WhatsApp and smartphone operating systems to steal data and secretly activate functions, including the camera.
In Bezos' case, the Amazon CEO had exchanged numbers with the Saudi prince a month before the hack.
Then on May 1, Bezos received a seemingly innocous MP4 video file from the prince's WhatsApp account that turned out to be spyware.
"The forensic analysis found that within hours of receipt of the MP4 video file from the Crown Prince's account, massive and (for Bezos' phone) unprecedented exfiltration of data from the phone began, increasing data egress suddenly by 29,156 percent to 126 MB.
Data spiking then continued undetected over some months and at rates as much as 106,032,045 per cent (4.6 GB) higher," the statement from the UN experts say.
They go on to add that if the hacking allegations are true, the whole case demonstrates the dangers of spyware being abused to violate human rights.
"It underscores the pressing need for a moratorium on the global sale and transfer of private surveillance technology," the UN experts said.
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To examine Bezos' phone, the unnamed forensic experts used an extensive series of tests.
However, the spyware itself was not detected or retrieved, preventing investigators from identifying it.
This may mean the spyware may have self-destructed, a capability Pegasus is known to have.
The experts also fingered the surveillance company Hacking Team as another possible provider of the spyware.
A copy of the forensic analysis has been leaked online via Motherboard.
Bezos originally commissioned the analysis in an effort to determine how the National Enquirer obtained private photos and texts exposing his extramarital affair with his now-girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.
The Saudi government is denying the allegations.
"Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr.
Jeff Bezos' phone are absurd.
We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out," the Saudi Embassy said in a .
In a statement, NSO Group also denied any involvement with the hack.
"We know this because of how our software works and our technology cannot be used on US phone numbers," the company said.
"Any suggestion that NSO is involved is defamatory and the company will take legal counsel to address this."
Meanwhile, the National Enquirer's parent company says it obtained Bezos' private photos by paying Sanchez's brother to obtain them.
