It’s enough to send a techie mad, all this talk about phone hacking. We all know that it is not really about hacking a person’s phone but simply getting access to their voicemail by assuming that the majority of people don’t change the default pass code on their voicemail, so armed with someone’s mobile phone number and network you can easily gain access to their voicemail.

I mean we struggle to get people to secure their bank PIN codes, computers, and the other paraphernalia of modern life so how do we hope to get them to set up a pass code for their voicemail. For instance a quick search tells me that Vodafone’s default voicemail PIN is 3333 and the short guide (which no-one reads anyway) has no reference to the need to change your voicemail PIN. Also most networks I have been on do not start prompting you about setting a PIN unless you phone in from a landline, and even if it does who cares most of the time.

So let’s firstly try to use this to make people understand the need to be aware of security in general, and secondly the need to change their voicemail pass codes to avoid them becoming targets for so called ‘phone hacking’. Surely the press should be raising awareness of this, but then again they would have no-one to ‘phone hack’ if they did.

Update

Just read ‘Smartphone users choose convenience over security‘ where we get the following information;

When asked about password protecting their mobile devices:

• More than half of respondents said they do not use a password or PIN to lock their smartphone or tablet
• 44 percent who do not lock their mobile devices said that using a password is “too cumbersome”
• 30 percent who do not lock their mobile devices said they “are not worried about the risk”.

Says it all really.

Picture by Garrettc