This may make the hair on the back of ya neck stand up if you don’t know about this growing problem!

I am not a big phone person. I prefer email or face to face conversations. It is something about holding that thing to my head that annoys me and I know there are blue-tooth devices so you can just have a thing in your ear but it doesn’t make it less annoying in my eyes.

I remember the good ol’ days when no one had a cellphone and those that did had that giant bag phone, anyone remember those? Even after the death of the bag phone, cellphones were still huge and did nothing but let you make and receive phone calls…ahhh the good ol’ days.

Well now, cellphones are nothing but mini computers that can take pictures, connect to the internet, play mp3′s, text message and so on. The problem with all this new technology stuffed into an internet connected device (whether you access the net through your phone or not it is still connected) is that there is NO security and NO virus protection at all!

This is where the intelligence agencies step in. I can safely mention all this now that it is public knowledge. For the last few years (shortly after the internet access was added) the FBI and other agencies found ways to turn cell phones into what they called “roaming bugs”.

They have been using conversations recorded without knowledge from mobsters cell phones against them. For those saying well done, I agree in theory. You see it wasn’t they got a phone tap to get the recordings, instead that injected a virus and effectively hacked the cell phones to allow them to control it remotely!

Now when I say control I mean control. They could turn the phone on if turned off. See everything the camera on the phone sees. Hear everything said within 10 feet of the phone through the microphone we speak into to talk to someone. And much more!

Now if that invasion doesn’t make you shiver that fact that the ability to hack cell phones has made its way into the public. Right now, someone could be remotely hacking your cellphone and you will have no idea they are doing it until they use it against you.

Cases are starting to surface where people are being stalked by people who have hacked their cellphone. I tell you this so you can be aware and at the end I’ll offer some suggestions that MIGHT help but more needs to be done. Back to the stalking, imagine your sitting on a couch talking with your family.

A few minutes later you get a text message with what is a transcript of everything just said. Followed by them making comments about clothes you or family members are wearing. And of course the childish threats of violence. What would you first thought be?

Most people are going to thinking someone is looking in their windows or maybe has installed some hidden camera in your house or that they are even IN your house. When in fact they simply may have hacked your cellphone and took control of the camera which is how they can see you and the microphone which is how they hear you.

The worst part is that the virus goes into your address book and text messages everyone in your list the virus, infecting their phones as well. This is where things get even scarier, you decide to change phones and numbers to try and ditch the stalker on to have it happen on your new phone after one of the people in your old list who is now infected sends the virus back to your new phone!

Ask yourself this, would you connect to the internet and surf or open emails without virus protection on your computer? And if your answer is yes, have you ever had a virus occur as a result? The answer will most likely be yes since there are literally 10′s of thousands of viruses out there running wild.

Now for those of you that think I am talking out an orifice I normally don’t speak from I have included many links to show you this is real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV_I7cgkqXc – This is a morning tv show you’ll see a guy from a security website on it say that he doesn’t believe this is really happening but in later interviews he changes his story to say it may happen but is rare or exotic as he calls it but he is talking out that orifice I mentioned above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wbi3VgLwvE – This is the today show – A guy from Symantec the leading anti virus/firewall provider who says it very well can happen and that they have been saying it would for over a year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTtr6ooNuHM – This is from geraldo last year he covers more than just this issue like caller id spoofing and ssn stealing but I will cover those in detail at a later date. Just concentrate on the first part where the guy steals the address book from Geraldos phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1fNjK9SXg – This is a Fox news report about fbi hacking cell phones and using them against the Mob like I mentioned earlier.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/23/technology/snoopware_mobil/ – This is the CNN website article about snoopware which is what they are calling this cell phone hacking virus it is also known as cellfinity.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9027438&pageNumber=2 – This is another nationally recognized website’s article with some good tips a the end for trying to protect yourself from this.

http://www.lavasoft.com/company/newsletter/2007/1_31/article1.html – This is an anti adware and firewall provider discussing the issue.

And the smoking gun to prove this is……http://www.flexispy.com/ – one of the MANY sites selling the actual snoopware that doesn’t exist and can’t be happening. Still don’t believe? Well then don’t.

As for protecting yourself, don’t count on the government since they didn’t even want to admit this was possible since they were using it against the mob for a while now and didn’t want to loose this roaming bug. There are more companies coming up with mobile security software like http://www.mymobisafe.com and http://www.symantec.com.