Secure Use of Voicemail Services

Mobile service providers offer a voicemail service to their customers. These services can generally be accessed by calling a special voicemail number direct from your mobile device or from another mobile or fixed phone line. In the latter case, the voicemail service will generally require that you enter a PIN number before you are allowed to access the voicemail service. The PIN number is designed to prevent unauthorised access to your voicemail, however in order for this PIN to provide effective protection, you should:

  • Keep your PIN number secret.
  • Do not use easily guessable PIN number values such as ‘0000’, ‘1111’, ‘1234’ etc.
  • If the voicemail service allows you to select how many digits are included in your PIN number, remember that, in general, the longer your PIN number the more secure it is.
  • It is advisable that you change your PIN regularly as a prudent security precaution. You may be able to do this as a menu option when calling your voicemail service. Alternatively, your service provider customer service team will be able to advise you how to change your voicemail PIN.
  • If you have any reason to believe that your PIN number is no longer secret, then change your voicemail PIN to a different value immediately.

If you believe that your voicemail has been accessed in an unauthorised manner, contact your service provider’s customer service team immediately.