How to Safeguard Your Cell Phone and Voice Mail

Member

By jimdris
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(46 Ratings)

Cell Phone

Voice mail has become an almost universal feature offered by cellular phone service providers. Both cell phones themselves and their voice mail features are inherently vulnerable to dangerous intrusions by hackers. This article provides information on why and how to safeguard the security of your cell phone and voice mail.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Cell Phone
Owner's Manual

Step 1

Phone Bill

When you get a new cell phone you should set a new password for retrieving your voicemail. Whether you plan to use the voice mail feature or not, it is very important to password protect it. Often a cell phone's voice mail greeting and message retrieval features are initially assigned a generic password, such as 1234 or the last four digits of your phone number. Thus, it would be relatively easy for a hacker to dial your cell phone number and intrude into your voicemail account. Hackers can potentially take over your voice mail boxes and use them for illegal purposes. They can also change your outgoing voice mail message to something malicious or threatening, or redirect your voice mail to another mailbox. Finally, they can rig your cell phone number so that hundreds of dollars of fraudulent long distance calls are charged to your account.
Step 2

User Manual

It is also very important to study your user manual to see if there are other passwords that you can set. For example, there may be a security password that you can establish and use if your cell phone is ever lost or stolen, so that you could promptly "lock" your phone, to prevent anyone from accessing your phone contacts which are stored in your cell phone. If you have any difficulty in setting passwords on your phone, do not hesitate to visit or call your service provider to obtain assistance.
Step 3

Be very careful to safeguard the physical security of your cell phone. Do not leave it unattended in a public place, or loan it to anyone who may be less than responsible in keeping your cell phone safe.
Step 4

Police department

You should check your voice mail greeting and your voice mail messages periodically to ensure the integrity of your voice mail. If you find that your voice mail account has been compromised, do not hesitate to contact law enforcement officials and also your cell phone service provider.