The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHROC) also called for an investigation into the matter. In a statement published on its website, the office said that its experts were "gravely concerned by information they have received suggesting that, in contravention of fundamental international human rights standards," the crown prince used WhatsApp to spy on Bezos."The forensic analysis assessed that the intrusion likely was undertaken through the use of a prominent spyware product identified in other Saudi surveillance cases, such as the NSO Group's Pegasus-3 malware, a product widely reported to have been purchased and deployed by Saudi officials. This would be consistent with other information," UNHROC wrote.NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm, which stands accused of having its technology used by the Saudis to track Khashoggi, responded to the allegations that Bezos' phone was hacked."NSO is shocked and appalled by the story that has been published with respect to alleged hacking of the phone of Mr. Jeff Bezos. If this story is true, then it deserves a full investigation by all bodies providing such services to assure that their systems have not been used in this abuse. Just as we stated when these stories first surfaced months ago, we can say unequivocally that our technology was not used in this instance," the firm wrote on its website."These types of abuses of surveillance systems blacken the eye of the cyber intelligence community and put a strain on the ability to use legitimate tools to fight serious crime and terror," it continued.The first reports of Kushner and the crown prince communicating via WhatsApp surfaced in 2018, according to Business Insider. However, at this time, there are no reports that Kushner’s phone was hacked.Tzvi Joffre contributed to this report.Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos' phone are absurd. We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out.
— Saudi Embassy (@SaudiEmbassyUSA) January 22, 2020
Jared Kushner told to replace phone after Jeff Bezos was allegedly hacked
Kushner reportedly used WhatsApp, which is the app that bin Salman allegedly used to hack Bezos several months before the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
