Phone hacking:

Could anyone else be picking up your messages?

Can my mobile phone be hacked? A question a lot of us have been asking over recent days, for obvious reasons. So I set about finding out about the threats to your phone and mine.

I called the network I've been using recently, O2, in search of reassurance. They told me that the original hacking technique which made the phones of anyone who used voicemail insecure does now appear to be obsolete.
It involved exploiting the fact that mobile phone operators gave customers default pin numbers - 0000 or 1234 - to access their voicemail from another phone.
O2 say that when they investigated back in 2006, 40 customers were identified as having had their voicemail accessed without authorisation by the News of The World's Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire. After that the network changed its system.
"A customer is now required to personalise their PIN number from their mobile phone if they wish to access their voicemails from another phone. If a customer does not choose a PIN, they will not be able to remotely access any of their voicemails."
But there are other threats out there - just look at this post on the technology site CNET.
The security consultant Kevin Mitnick describes another technique that could allow someone to access your voicemail if they knew your phone number.
Caller ID spoofing allows anyone with a modicum of technical know-how to get access to your voicemail by convincing the system that it's you calling.
According to CNET, the technique has been used in the past to hack celebrities' messages. But rest easy - both O2 and Vodafone told me their systems were designed to make this technique impossible in the UK.