You don’t have to be a celebrity to become a victim of telephone hacking. If your voicemails have been accessed without your permission then you have been a victim. The Royal Family are probably one the most well-known victims of phone hacking. The British media have hacked into the voicemail of a number of celebrities. But perhaps the most outrageous case was the family of MillyDowler. In March 2002, 13 year old Milly went missing; herbody was found 6 months later – she had been murdered. After she went missing, a British tabloid newspaper managed to hack into her voicemail and in the process deleting some of the messages. This gave false hope to her parents and the police that Milly was still alive. From then on phone hacking became a term that everyone was familiar with.
If your telephone bill has risen dramatically recently then you may have been a victim of phone hacking. It is most likely to occur at evenings and holiday periods as that is when it is less likely to be discovered. Phreaking is the name given to the process when people hack into your phone system. If you have been the victim of phone hacking then your phone bill could have increased by £1,000.
Your phone needs to be secured in the same way your computer does. However, most people don’t realise what has happened until it’s too late. It’s not just internet geeks that know how to do this. The offenders are learning to do this from dedicated websites to the activity. The offenders can make a lot of money from hacking into phone systems.
Just how Does It Happen?
Telephone hacking generally involves an employee that is already working for the company. The hacking will then be carried out by impostors who the employee will give details of PIN numbers and other confidential information. This reduces their risk of being caught and the PAB can be reprogrammed. They will run up your telephone bill by dialling every number possible once they get into your system. Some hackers can often guess our PIN numbers are we like to select PINs that are easy to remember. Therefore, it is suggested that you should change your PIN every few months. This is the easiest thing you can do to stop your company’s phones from being hacked into.
Dangers
There are numerous high threats involved with telephone hacking. Famous, powerful or rich people are most at risk of being the victim of phone hacking. But phone hacking could happen to anyone.
How Can It Be Stopped?
A firewall can sustain the calls on your phone system. You will be ahead of thing by incorporating that. This will allow you to control the number of calls that are received outside working hours. So when you leave the office you can activate the firewall so only emergency services and staff numbers can be called and all calls to other numbers will be disconnected immediately.
This article was written by Brian Madden; VirtualAdvertisingAssociate at Strata Communications.
