International phone hacking scandal highlights how vulnerable phone really are - KDVR

International phone hacking scandal highlights how vulnerable phone really are - KDVR

"DENVER -- The British hacking scandal is raising questions about just how vulnerable our own phones are, and just how easy it is to hack into them.

Denver computer forensics expert Charles Tendell says hacking into someone's voicemail is as easy as guessing their personal identification numbers or PINs.

"Think about how simple a 4-digit code is to guess," he says. “Easily guessable are all ones, all zeros, all fours, birth dates, street addresses. It's all information that is that freely available in different places."

And Tendell says a lot of people make it even easier because they don't even set up passwords to retrieve messages.

"Technology has become such a big part of our lives we’ve become complacent with how to deal with it,” Tendell says. “With security measures that should be there, people skip over those; “I don't want to enter in a password so I won't set one.””

Hackers can also use ID spoofing services like Spooftel.com.

The service lets hackers make it look like a call to a phone's voice mail is coming from that phone and because the phone company thinks it's the phone’s owner, it doesn't ask for a pin and sends them straight to voicemail."