We’re hearing stories about phone systems being hacked. I was away in Wellington last week, and picked up some stories out of Christchurch about massive toll bills ($10,000!!!) occurring over just 2-3 days. As the stories go, and I stress these are just stories, the hackers are apparently out of Somalia. It seems they are compromising phone systems and using the stolen services to sell cheap toll cards to their customer base.
The theme out of Christchurch was that the problems were particular to Alacatel systems (they’re having a bad run!) but subsequent rumours suggest the problems may be more widespread.
These people are thieves! They must not be allowed to steal from you! We strongly advise getting your office phone systems double-checked to ensure they are secure.
(While we check your internet connections and network security, most phone systems fall outside our scope!)