How easy is it to hack phones?

You don’t need to be a science graduate or even a professional hacker in order to hack into someone’s mobile or voice mail. The security systems in most mobile devices can easily be breached. The News of the World is alleged to have hacked into thousands of voice mail accounts to get hold of scoops before their rivals could. The newspaper found it incredibly easy to enter someone else’s voicemail account and get hold of private information. The most famous victim of the paper’s hacking was the British schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, who went missing in 2002 and whose murdered body was discovered six months later.

According to the scanty details that are currently available, the newspaper used the system of default PINs to gain entry into other people’s voicemails. Apparently majority of the users don’t bother to change their PIN, once they are awarded one by their telecom company. This makes them sitting ducks for potential hackers. Some analysts have questioned whether the use of default pin codes to get at those voicemail accounts could be considered hacking. But such questions miss the real point. Even if it is not hacking in legal parlance, the user still suffers a breach of privacy.

It is not as if your safety is guaranteed once you have changed your PIN; it is still possible for a hacker to get into your account through techniques that are slightly more sophisticated. For instance, a hacker may trick the mobile operator’s system into registering a call as coming from the original user’s handset. To do this, hackers mostly resort to writing a script that uses open-source telecom software, and then they find a voice-over-IP provider that allows them to set caller ID; non-hackers can go in for some online systems that provide similar services at a small fee. In hacker parlance, the technique is called Caller ID Spoofing, and it has been abused and used on numerous instances.

Another technique that the hacker can use to get hold of your PIN is to simply call the mobile operator. He can pretend that it is you that is calling by using some easily available information like date of birth, mother’s maiden name, father’s name, residential address, etc. He can then ask for the PIN to be reset and thereby gain access to your account. There is also the possibility that the hacker may avoid using technology altogether, he may simply bribe some official working for the operator whose connection you are using, and then he would have access to a whole lot of information.

Then there is the commercial software, known as spyware, which can be used to breach the privacy of some unsuspecting user. You can be tricked into downloading the spyware directly, or you can be fraudulently lured to a website that automatically inserts the code into your device. Spyware that can take copies of everything stored in the smartphone, log its location or even switch on its components, is easily available. The owner of the infected handset doesn’t even know that his own device is being used to spy on him. There is no dearth of games that have spyware buried inside them, and are capable of gathering more information than they should.

It is indeed a fact that while mobile phones and tablets have brought lot of ease to our lives, they have also made it easy for our privacy and security to be compromised. We do need to keep lot of information at our fingertips, but we should also take some necessary precautions. The PINs and the passwords must be changed regularly. And as much as possible, you should avoid downloading all kinds of free games and others apps from little known vendors.
 

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