Hacking smart phones is easy: experts

LOS ANGELES, USA: Security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a seven-digit numerical code that can unlock all kinds of secrets about you, according to Los Angeles Times report.

According to the report, using relatively simple techniques, the experts can use your cellphone number to figure out your name, where you live and work, where you travel and when you sleep. The experts have demonstrated that they can even listen to your voice messages and personal phone calls.

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DePetrillo and Bailey are part of a busy community of security researchers – some of whom are known as "white hat" hackers – investigating and exposing the many security holes that have yet to be plugged by smart-phone makers and their wireless carriers.

The world has come a long distance from old-style telephones, which were little more than a speaker, a bell and a microphone connected to a wire.

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But as smart phones become more powerful and widely used, they also become busy hubs for data, packed with a user's digital Rolodex, e-mails and credit card details. Most phones are also fitted with a global positioning device that beams its location far and wide.

Once they have a phone number – yours for instance – they can easily determine your name by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the Caller ID system. Using special software, they can "spoof" a call – that is, make a call that appears to the phone company as though it's coming from your number. They can then call themselves using your number and watch as their Caller ID device lights up with your name.

Attackers could theoretically do this with thousands of numbers to create their own personal mobile phone book, the report said.