Hijacking cell phones

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - “If you do a Google search for it, you will find it in less than a minute,” says computer forensic examiner, Andrew von Ramin-Mapp. He's talking about the ultimate in consumer level espionage.

“You purchase them. You download them. And you install them,” Mapp states.

It’s software that enables you to have complete control over someone's cell phone. “Access to information is power,” asserts Mapp, who owns a computer forensics lab in Orlando.

He's also a certified ethical hacker who showed us how to hijack a cell phone.

“The software was developed off the coast of Africa,” Mapp tells us.

Mapp dropped nearly 300 dollars for the software and then got the so-called victim's phone in his possession.

The time it took to install the program? Roughly about 5 to 10 minutes. That's it.

As long as he knew the exact model of the phone and its operating system specs, it took him just minutes to hijack it.

“It's not going to show up as any other application on your cell phone,” Mapp adds.

Mapp can now get a full detail on incoming and outgoing calls.  He gets an instant copy of every text message and email sent to it.

"What their coworkers are doing. What their competitors are doing. What their spouses are doing,” says Mapp.

The higher priced software even lets him listen to conversations in real time. In fact, the victim doesn't even have to be talking on the phone.

“It will even activate the speaker and basically function as a bug. The screen goes black. It really is stealth,” Mapp demonstrates.

This allows him to listen to whatever's going on in the room, no matter where he is in the world.

But this has to be illegal, right? “Yes. All of that’s illegal,” says Orlando Attorney William Jay.

He says without everyone's consent to be bugged, you simply can't bug. It's criminal. You can be sued for money.
And it's inadmissible in court.

“So if you’re doing this to catch a cheating spouse, it’s not going to be admissible in the divorce case,” says Jay.

And just because you own the phone and even pay the bill doesn't matter.

“That's not going to excuse you from the privacy they're expecting in their phone conversations with another person or in their electronic communications with another person,” submits Jay.

And getting someone to allow an invasion of privacy is practically unheard of.

Which is why this kind of spyware is kept in the underworld. For the average person, there's no way they're going to know.

The spyware even allows you to secretly trace a phone's location with GPS. And for now, that aspect of the software is legal.

There is a legit company in the United States that sells an anti-spyware program that you can install on your phone. It's $30 and will remove any bugs.

Find it, by clicking here .

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On the web:

www.kaspersky.com/kaspersky_mobile_security