RAMALLAH CITY, Palestine (AA): An Israeli firm provided Saudi Arabia withtechnological services to hack a mobile phone, Israeli website TheMarkerreported Wednesday.
A representative of the Israeli-based company Cellebrite arrived in Riyadhfrom London on a commercial flight in November 2019 “to hack into a phonein the possession of the Saudi Justice Ministry,” the website said.
The company asked Saudi authorities to receive its representative at theairport to finish his arrival procedures without stamps in his passport andwithout inspection of his electronic equipment.
It said the request of the Saudi general prosecutor’s office in Riyadh wasto hack a Samsung S10 phone, and when the job was completed, therepresentative flew back to London.
The phone’s owner was not identified by TheMarker.
The report said Cellebrite was not the only Israeli company to providehacking or other cybersecurity services to Saudi Arabia, but it is the onlyfirm to work without Israeli Defense Ministry oversight.
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It noted that Cellebrite was also working in Saudi Arabia at the time ofSaudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing Oct. 2, 2018 in Istanbul.
At that time, the accusation was directed at another Israeli cyber firm,NSO, for providing remote cellphone hacking services to Saudi Arabia’sCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to TheMarker.
The accusation was, however, denied by NSO, but it continued to work withSaudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia does not have diplomatic or official ties with Israel, unlikethe United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which signed normalization agreementsTuesday with Tel Aviv under US President Donald Trump’s sponsorship.
