SAN DIEGO -- These days just about everyone has a cell phone.

But, what if you were told the cell phone you own could be an easy target for criminals?

That's exactly what happened to Silvia Mendez. Her Palm Treo 700-P cell phone number was cloned by hackers.

"Calls were originating from San Diego one minute, then one minute from New York and then back to San Diego," she said.

Calls were even made using her cell phone from New York to Spain.

"I was not in New York, or in Spain," said Mendez.

Mendez admitted she rarely checks her phone bill, so she didn't catch the illegal activity. Her cell phone carrier, Verizon Wireless, notified her of the calls.

"I tried to call out one day, and I was connected to Verizon's account investigation department," said Mendez.

Mendez said Verizon Wireless helped her re-program her phone so that it was no longer vulnerable, but did confirm her phone number had been cloned.

"It's harder to clone phones now then it was 10 years ago," said Michael Shames, a consumer expert and advocate. "It still happens, it's just harder to do."

When most phones were analog, cloning was a popular crime, and easy to do. Now, in the age of digital, it's much harder to accomplish.

According to the company that makes Mendez's phone -- Palm, Inc. -- the problem exists with the phone itself. Palm said some smartphones shipped before April 2007 did not have the proper safety device installed to prevent cloning.

Palm said it never told customers about it because it didn't want to alert hackers. Instead, the company said it posted free software on its website that customers can download that will protect them. The phones possibly affected are TREO 700-P and 700w/wx shipped before April 2007.

Mendez said she's outraged the company didn't notify her and wishes she had known before someone victimized her.

For more information on this story check out the I-team's blog under "Investigations."

If you have a Palm Treo 700-P or 700 W/WX that was purchased before April 2007 you might need to install software to protect your home from hackers.

The software could be downloaded at www.palm.com/support.