Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman hacked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s phone through WhatsApp: Report

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' personal mobile phone was reportedly hacked in 2018 by Saudi Arabia crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman when during a WhatsApp exchange Salamna sent a malicious WhatsApp video file to infiltrate Bezos' phone, reported the Guardian newspaper.

According to Guardian, Prince Salman sent the encrypted file to Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, on May 1, 2018, after which “large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos’s phone within hours”.

It may be recalled that Bezos' security chief had claimed in March 2019 that Saudi government had access to Amazon CEO's phone and his private information has been compromised.

Experts maintained that the publication January of leaked text messages between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in 2019 can be linked to this hacking. Sanchez was a television anchor who the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper claimed Bezos was dating.

In February 2019, Bezos had accused the owner of newspaper of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing some private photos of him and Sanchez.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia minister of state for foreign affairs had said in February last year that his government had "absolutely nothing to do" with the National Enquirer's reporting Bezos' affair with Sanchez.