Read also Article reserved for our subscribers Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman suspected of hacking billionaire Jeff Bezos' phone
How was Jeff Bezos' phone hacked?
Much of this is unknown. Investigators commissioned by Jeff Bezos were able to observe that the phone had sent very large amounts of information just after the American billionaire received a video message sent by the Saudi crown prince. But investigators were unable to find any trace of spyware on the phone, which may have self-destructed or escaped analysis – the phone could not be fully examined by researchers. So it is unclear precisely how the data was extracted. And while investigators say they are very confident that the hack is directly linked to this video, they do not have, as is often the case in this type of case, irrefutable proof. As for Saudi Arabia, it denies any role in this hack.
The suspicions of investigators and part of the computer overseas chinese in canada data security community focus on one software in particular: Pegasus, a powerful spying system designed by the Israeli company NSO Group, several uses of which by Saudi services have been documented in the past, including against relatives of the Washington Post journalist (which belongs to Jeff Bezos) Jamal Khashoggi , assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Read also: In Saudi Arabia, five people sentenced to death for the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi
Can my phone be hacked just by sending me a video?
It’s technically possible, but for the vast majority of people, the answer is no. Spyware like Pegasus takes advantage of so-called “zero-day” security flaws – flaws that haven’t yet been discovered by the software’s designers. These flaws, which are relatively rare and often difficult to exploit, are sold to companies that specialize in more or less legal hacking, like NSO Group, who use them until they are made public and fixed.
It is therefore possible that spyware capable of hacking a phone by simply sending a video exists today, but if so, its use is very expensive, and reserved for intelligence services or very specialized companies. These technologies are not, for example, within the reach of a jealous ex-spouse or an unscrupulous employer. However, they are among the tools that can target lawyers, journalists, political opponents or human rights activists in a totalitarian country.
