Jeff Bezos's Phone Hack
| Jeff Bezos's Phone Hack | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Jeff Bezos iPhone X Was Hacked Through WhatsApp |
| Location | United States |
| Date | April 2018 |
| Solove Harm | Insecurity, Interrogation |
| Information | Communication, Identifying, Behavioral, Preference, Physical Characteristics, Computer Device, Contact, Location, Account, Public Life, Social Network, Family |
| Threat Actors | WhatsApp Inc. (Facebook Inc.), Unidentified hackers, Apple, Facebook |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Jeff Bezos |
| High Risk Groups | Wealthy |
| Tangible Harms | |
The phone of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos was hacked, which allowed attackers to install spyware and copy a large amount of his personal information.
Description
In 2018 iPhone X owned by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos was hacked. Experts claim the attack happened via a message that was sent to Bezos’ phone from Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman via WhatsApp in April 2018. The message contained the innocuous-seeming video file, with a tiny bit of malicious code. This malware is called Pegasus and was developed by the Tel-Aviv based NSO group. It is known for being created for the explicit purpose of prying into private online communications. Another spyware that was used in the incident is called Galileo and was developed by the Milan based Hacking Team. However, the experts didn’t explicitly link any of the two hacking groups to this particular attack. It remains unclear who is responsible for the incident.
The hackers gained access to Mr.Bezos’ entire phone, including his photos and private communications.
In the 24 hours after the WhatsApp message was sent, Mr. Bezos’ iPhone began sending large amounts of data, which increased approximately 29,000 percent over his normal data usage.
The malware managed to bypass Apple’s control system on the phone. Investigators also said that some other apps on the phone where being used while the data was leaking, and since they are normally not used by Mr.Bezos, it was concluded, that the apps were sending data to the attackers as well. Those included the Safari web browser and the Apple Mail program. Insecurity
Hacker's actions can be interpreted as probing for personal information through the smartphone, and therefore another violation identified here is Interrogation.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/jeff-bezos-phone-hack.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/technology/jeff-bezos-hack-iphone.html