Cybersecurity Blog

Keeping voicemail safe from breaches – 01/05/21

 

 

Happy New Year!!  Another year, another security concern. This time it isn’t your email, your workstation or your smart phone. This time it is your voicemail. Hackers are taking over voicemail accounts and using them to impersonate people, make thousands in long distance calls and by-pass two factor authentication. Not only does this cost organizations but it is also embarrassing and can lead to network compromise and data loss.

To prevent this, secure your voicemail just as you would your workstation. Use UNIQUE passwords/PINs at least 8 characters long. Remember you aren’t limited to just the 6 characters we are used to using. You can use up to 64 if you wish. Also, make sure your voicemail password/PIN is not a numeric version of any of your other passwords, your age, your birthday, your pets name or any other personal information.

Lastly keep your voicemail password/PIN secret. That means do not share it with colleagues nor leave it on a post-it on your phone. Once someone has your password/PIN, they can forward calls, change your greeting, make long distance calls, pretend to be you and generally cause problems while making you the fall guy. Even if they don’t have malicious intent, once someone gets ahold of your password/PIN they may not be as careful with it as you are.

If you are away on vacation and need someone else to cover for you, record a vacation message directing people to call your substitute directly. You can have calls forwarded automatically, but if no one answers a message is left on the voicemail that received the call, not the one that the call was forwarded to. If neither of these solutions will work for you contact the IT Service Desk, they will find one that does not involve the sharing of passwords/PINs.

 

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