Saudis have hacked the phone from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, says head of the company's security | Technology



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Amazon's chief security officer, Jeff Bezos, said the Saudi government had access to Bezos' phone and obtained confidential information.

Gavin de Becker, a long-time security consultant, said he had completed his investigation into the January release of filtered text messages between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, a former television presenter with whom the National Enquirer tabloid, Bezos, was dating.

Shortly before publication, Bezos became the subject of tabloid accounts after his wife MacKenzie and he announced their divorce.

In February, Bezos accused the owner of National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing "intimate photos" he would have sent to Sanchez, unless he publicly declared that the reports of tabloid do not have political motivation.

In an article published on the Daily Beast website, De Becker said that the parent company of National Enquirer, American Media Inc., had privately asked De Becker to deny the discovery of any evidence of "wiretapping." or hacking as part of their information gathering process ".

"Our investigators and several experts concluded with great confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone and obtained confidential information," De Becker wrote. "To date, it's hard to know how much AMI knew about the details."

De Becker said Saudi Arabia targeted the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, following the death in Turkey of one of his columnists, Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a Saudi national, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

"Some Americans will be surprised to learn that the Saudi government is very determined to hurt Jeff Bezos since last October, when the post office began relentlessly to cover the killing of Khashoggi," De Becker wrote.

The CIA has concluded that the killing of Khashoggi was probably ordered by the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

A spokesman for the Saudi Embbady in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In February, the British Foreign Minister said that Saudi Arabia had "absolutely nothing to do" with the reports of the national investigator on the case.

A representative of AMI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AMI previously stated to have acted legally in reporting the history of Bezos.

De Becker said he had handed the findings of his investigation to US federal officials, without giving further details.

Reuters contributed to this report

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