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Okay, so maybe the contents of your text messages or your voicemail inbox aren't as juicy as the Royal family's or Hugh Grant's - but does being a regular joe protect you from phone hacking?

Todd Wasserman over at social media blog Mashable says yes, but no. Mobiles are relatively easy to hack, he explains, but security experts say you needn't worry much if you aren't a public figure.

Still, the methods are surprisingly even less sophisticated than computer hacking: someone might call you posing as the phone company and ask for personal information. Others might crack your password by simply guessing (raise your hand if your password is your year of birth or the carrier's default, which is often '1111'). Slate Magazine points out that voicemail passwords are generally easier to crack than website ones since users "are restricted to the 10 digits on a phone and typically limited to a certain length."

But there are some more sophisticated ways of gaining access to your instant messaging history and your photos folder.

If you lose your iPhone, it's not too difficult for the person who finds it to jailbreak it and nab your passwords to access content on it.

In March, dozens of Android apps that contained malicious code were uploaded to the Android Marketplace. They allowed hackers to access data on the phones. Google removed those apps from their marketplace and had to do it again in June with another batch of infected apps.

What do you do to protect your mobile phone? How often do you change your passwords?

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