The big lesson from the Bezos hack: Anyone can be a target

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — You may not think you're in the same league as Jeff Bezos when it comes to being a hacking target. Probably not, but you — and just about anyone else, potentially including senior U.S. government figures — could still be vulnerable to an attack similar to one the Amazon founder and Washington Post owner apparently experienced.

Two U.N. experts this week called for the U.S. to investigate a likely hack of Bezos' phone that could have involved Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. A commissioned forensic report found with “medium to high confidence” that Bezos' iPhone X was compromised by a video MP4 file he received from the prince in May 2018.

Bezos later went public about the hack after the National Enquirer tabloid threatened to publish Bezos’ private photos if he didn’t call off a private investigation into the hacking of his phone. It's not clear if those two events are related. The Saudis have denied any involvement in the purported hack.

The events could potentially affect U.S.-Saudi relations. On Friday, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said he is asking the National Security Agency to look into the security of White House officials who may have messaged the crown prince, particularly on personal devices. Jared Kushner, a White House aide and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, is known to have done so using WhatsApp.

Wyden called reports of the Bezos hack “extraordinarily ominous” and said they may have “startling repercussions for national security.”

But the could resonate at the personal level as well. As the cost of hacking falls while opportunities to dig into peoples' online lives multiply, more and more people are likely to end up as targets, even if they're not the richest individuals in the world.

Ultimately, that boils down to a simple...