How Important is Securing Voice Mail Messages? Ask Rupert Murdoch
The question of who may be listening to your voice mails is a subject that is receiving a lot of attention in the news. It has already led to the closing of a 168 year old newspaper and is killing a multi-billion dollar acquisition deal.
When you have Unified Messaging systems that can forward your voice messages anywhere (cell phone, PC or tablet) where can they end up once they are sent out of your system?
Already struggling with a seemingly endless torrent of security and privacy challenges, IT departments have yet another headache.
Protecting enterprise data and information with an increasingly mobile work force is a formidable task. Securing regular emails creates problems. Voice mails being sent out like emails (in a UM environment) creates even more. This problem is especially acute in organizations where voice mails may contain information that is highly sensitive or have a highly private nature. Legal, medical and financial sectors are just a few examples. Striking the balance between the productivity improvements that Unified Messaging offers and securing data is almost an impossible task.
In response, some CIO's and security departments have recommended security requirements to eliminate or restrict the users the ability to attach audio files to an external e-mail address for the user. This action, if followed would result in depriving users of one of the greatest benefits of Unified Messaging.
Even organizations that have already deployed UM are faced with the issue of limiting, disabling or not deploying their Unified Messaging capabilities so that private voice messages are not exposed.
It is clear that a solution is needed, what are your thoughts? I can be reached at neal@communitechservices.com.
Additional articles can be found at www.communitechservices.com.