What is mobile phone hacking? Many of you may be asking this question after the News of the World debacle that happened recently. A missing child called Milly Dowler had voice messages from her cellphone deleted by News of the World journalists in order to free up space for new messages.
As a result, the police were led to believe that the girl was still alive but this was not the case. As a result, the journalists involved in this phone hacking scandal were arresting and are awaiting trial. You may be wondering how the newspaper managed to hack in to the girls phone and delete her messages. Well according to some experts, it is quite simple. However they do not believe that what the News of the World did was actually considered hacking, but rather just listening to voice messages. However, there is still the question of how they managed to get access to her cellphone.
Firstly, apparently it is very simple (in the UK at least) to get in to someone’s voice messages. All you simply need to do is call the number and wait until the point where you are asked to leave a message. From there, you press * and enter the pin number for the voice message box. It is that simple. And what makes it even simpler is that many people do not have security pins on their voicemail boxes. In an article published by www.bbc.co.uk, their technology correspondent claimed that although hacking in to voice messages is easy, the hacking in to other content on cellular phones such as text messages is much more difficult.
In order to hack a handset claims Ward, requires the installation of software of some sorts. This can be done either by gaining physical access to the device or by encouraging the owner to download an application that has the tracking software hidden in it. Some spyware software is available that copies everything on the phone and this can be done without the user ever knowing. In addition to this, the advent of Bluetooth further facilitated the increase in hacking that occurred as from a few meters away, hackers could take all the information they could want off your phone without you ever knowing. Another way that people are conned in to downloading spyware is by being sent an email which sends them to a website. Whilst on the site, spyware is being installed without their knowledge. The scary thing is that there is no way of knowing which website it was that the hacking occurred on.
Some Phones are at more Risk than Others
Smart phones are particularly susceptible to spyware due to the fact that you can access the phone with very little effort. For example the majority of smart phone users do not only use it as a cellular phone, but also as a social networking tool. As a result, we tweet, facebook, and do all sorts of other things on the web on our smartphones.
Moreover, the growing number of applications that people download can have spyware technology buried in them. Therefore you are leaving yourself open to hacking. But what does this mean for those of you who live through your phones? Should you live in fear of being hacked? The simple answer is no. There are several anti-virus/anti-spyware technologies that you can download to ensure that hacking does not occur.
In addition to this, make sure that your cellular phone is pin protected, and that your Bluetooth is disconnected at all times. These minor steps could help you from having your phone hacked. If you are still confused about “What is phone hacking” then you can describe it as any unauthorised access to personal information held on your cellular telephone. This is a prosecutable offence and should not be taken lightly.