"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." --Thomas --Thomas A. Edison
(Con3nued from page 29)
commit their nefarious actions during weekends or holiday periods when it will not be noticed as quickly. While you are enjoying a weekend puttering in the garden, crooks are busy calling far-off locales like Somalia or Saudi Arabia on your dime. What is being done to quash this epidemic? It is a struggle for authorities to track down and prosecute the offenders, thanks to their ability to cover their tracks and spoof the phone numbers from which their illicit activity originates. This makes it impossible to block the offending numbers. Volume is also a factor – the scam is so widespread it would take a significant amount of police time and resources to catch the culprits. Reviewing your system and taking steps to protect yourself is the best line of defence. Though not fail safe, strong passwords go a long way. We have been taught to use strong passwords for our online accounts – though some still fail to take heed to the advice – and the same applies to our voice mail passwords. If you are using an easy to remember, and an equally easy to hack password such as ‘0000’ or ‘1234’ you are leaving yourself susceptible to an attack. Choose a complex password and change it frequently. Sometimes hackers will change a voice mail greeting to fool operators into thinking a collect call has been accepted, so check yours often. Disable any features on your phone system that are not used, such as call-forwarding or out-of-office paging. A few simple actions could help prevent problems in the long run. 30 Small Biz Forward