- New reporting alleges that Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone through WhatsApp.
- The report raises renewed concern about top White House aide Jared Kushner's reported WhatsApp communications with bin Salman. There is no reporting to suggest that Kushner's phone was hacked.
- The Guardian reported Tuesday that Bezos' phone was infiltrated after he opened a malicious video file sent to him from the crown prince's number on WhatsApp.
- The Intercept first reported in March 2018 that Kushner had messaged with bin Salman on WhatsApp, a popular encrypted communication app. CNN reported the same in October 2018.
- Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told the House oversight committee in December 2018 that Kushner was using WhatsApp for official government communications, including with individuals outside the US.
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Reports that President Donald Trump's son-in-law and top White House aide, Jared Kushner, used the WhatsApp messaging app to communicate with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia previously caused a stir.
But a new bombshell report from The Guardian, alleging that bin Salman used WhatsApp to infiltrate Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone raises new concerns that Kushner could be vulnerable to similar hacking by the Saudi government.
Bezos' phone was reportedly infiltrated after he opened a malicious video file sent to him from the crown prince's number on WhatsApp. After Bezos opened the file, data was rapidly extracted from his personal phone, the report alleges.
The Intercept first reported in March 2018 that Kushner had messaged with bin Salman on WhatsApp, a popular encrypted communication app owned by Facebook. CNN reported the same in October 2018.
Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told the House oversight committee in December 2018 that Kushner was using WhatsApp for official government communications, including with individuals outside the US.
The late House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings made Lowell's admission public in a March 2019 letter alleging that Kushner may have broken federal records laws. Democratic lawmakers and cybersecurity experts have criticized Kushner's use of WhatsApp
Daniel Schuman, chair of the nonprofit Congressional Data Coalition, told CNN last year that Kushner's practice was "a recipe for disaster."
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the messaging service's co-founder, Brian Acton, who has since left the company, encouraged people to delete Facebook because of the company's privacy violations.
Bezos' own team began investigating his phone last January after The National Enquirer published a story exposing his extramarital affair. Bezos later accused The Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., of blackmailing him by threatening to publish nude images of him.
David Pecker, the CEO of American Media Inc., reportedly had a close relationship with bin Salman in the months leading up to The National Enquirer's story. Bezos himself insinuated a Saudi connection in a blog post published to Medium in 2019 about AMI kerfuffle.
There is no reporting to suggest that Kushner's phone was hacked. The White House didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Facebook previously declined to comment to Business Insider about the alleged hack.
Aaron Holmes contributed to this report.