November 22nd, 2008
Verizon Fires Workers Over Obama Cell Phone Breach
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Here’s a perfect example of why some want Barack Obama to give up his Blackberry. Whether or not you agree with that “demand,” hacks like this are a concern.
Verizon Wireless informed President-Elect Obama’s transition team on Wednesday of employees hacking into an Obama cell phone account, and Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam announced the breach in a press release on Thursday.
“This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months. The device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or other smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services.
“All employees who have accessed the account – whether authorized or not – have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee’s access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.
“We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day.”
It wasn’t his Blackberry, which is a small favor, but does that really matter? And if it can happen to him, while it’s unlikely anyone would care about your phone, it could still be done.
On Friday, Verizon Wireless announced that all employees involved in the breach were terminated. Sources told CNN:
The source would not say how many people were terminated but said “we now consider this matter closed.”
The fired employees were hired “to take care of customers,” the Verizon source said, and were not authorized to access customer records unless asked to do so by the customer.
“This was some employees’ idle curiosity,” the source said, adding that records of no other customers of note were breached.
Fortunately, the source told CNN that the employees could not have accessed any text messages or voice mail. Of course, with a Blackberry, why would Obama have been using this other phone to text, anyway?
But that’s not the point, is it? Verizon Wireless employees, can you hear this now? Hopefully, they hear Verizon’s response loud and clear?
Mike Arnold says:
It saddens me that Verizon has a long-standing policy of tolerating dishonesty. I am a father and grandfather of a Verizon employee who has been stealing from them for a long time. It is my failure as a parent this child has become the way she is. In an effort to educate my child to the evils of theft I turned my daughter in for stealing from Verizon. To my surprise instead of Verizon using some type of disciplinary action she was given a promotion. In the end my grandchildren have been taken away, Verizon has another employee capable of the current charges against them with hacking Obama’s phone records. My question to Verizon is: Would you like to borrow my dictionary to allow you to define integrity, honesty, and morality?
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 am