How Safe is Your Cell Phone?

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Your cell phone is vulnerable.

Using inexpensive, off-the-shelf software akin to what the federal government uses against terrorists and the Mafia, people can listen to your calls, read your text messages, track your location and even listen to what you say while your phone is off.

How is this possible? Law Enforcement agencies can work with the cell phone companies under a court order to change the “firmware” on the phone. Obviously, most accountants won’t be under suspicion of a federal crime. In fact, as it stands today the odds are greatly in your favor in terms of cell phone security.

That was one of the major selling points for cell phones in the first place — the ability to encrypt the signal so it could not be intercepted over the network. But three things have happened since the introduction of the cell phone that makes the system less secure:

• Consumers got careless. Cell phones are so much a part of our lives — and so universal — that we take them for granted. If I have access to you, chances are good that I have access to your cell phone — at least for long enough to slip in an SD card loaded with a cell phone spy program.
  
• Cell phones got smarter. With each successive generation of phones, the operating system has gotten smarter and capable of running programs, including viruses that can alter the operating system of the cell phone.
  
• Bluetooth got universal. Bluetooth is the communication technology that allows you to use a wireless headset or listen to your phone through a car radio. Sadly, most people have their phones set to automatically connect to any nearby Bluetooth device. This makes it easy to connect to your phone and plant the software on it without even coming near you.

So how much trouble is this? Plenty, as it turns out. It is bad enough that phone conversations and SMS text can be recorded. But by activating the internal microphone of the cell handset, a person can actually listen in to conversations and record them. If the phone has a video camera built in, they can actually record video, hold it in memory and then send the video to someone else when the meeting is over.

Merger and acquisition discussions. Tax consulting with clients. Audits and their findings.

And the technology isn’t limited to law enforcement. It can be used by litigating parties, by vengeful ex-spouses and by competitors. Not legally, perhaps, but that is of little comfort considering the cell phone can be tapped in ways that are virtually impossible to discover.

Turning the cell phone off isn’t enough to protect client confidentiality. The battery must be taken out of the phone — an action that could erase data from the phone or require re-synchronization. Removing the battery isn’t all that hard. But it is irritating enough that I’m willing to bet that most people won’t do it.

I’m not willing to get all paranoid about my cell phone being tapped. Frankly, anyone who listened in to my phone would be bored to tears, and I never use SMS text messages for business.

Nevertheless, I am paranoid enough to insist that substantive business meetings will require that cell phones be left outside with the receptionist or that the batteries be visibly removed before the discussions begin.

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Dave McClure is a consultant and widely published writer on technology issues. He can be contacted at davemcclure@cpata.com.