How secure is Instant Messenger?

by DanTheMan 3 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  DanTheMan

  My new boss is perpetually cheery, and is the type of person who has never worried a day in her life.

  Today she tells me that our administrative assistant told her that payroll was having problems with the social security number that my boss had given her for me. So my boss showed me the number that they had down for me. It was off by one digit so I gave her the correct one.

  What she did next alarmed me a bit - she sent her the correct SS# by AOL Instant Message. I am pretty paranoid about identity theft (among other things) and I'm thinking that AOL Instant Messenger is not a good way to communicate sensitive information like that.

  But if I tell my boss that I wish she hadn't had done that for fear of my social falling in the wrong hands, I'm afraid of coming off sounding really anal, because like I said, I don't think this woman worries about anything.

  Ah, what to do? Should I be worried sick about this incident?

  I'm going to really start nagging some people at work to adopt Outlook 2003 as our email client as it has a built in IM feature. AOL IM has become the default means of communicating at my workplace, and I think that people don't realize that this is not the most ideal communication tool for work.
• 

  Hyghlandyr

  It is this simple dan..your social is only allowed to be placed by you on certain documents..those documents are not allowed to be changed by anyone..remember you signed under penalties of perjury on them. If someone else changes the documents that negates that. If they are having trouble with your social, they are supposed to give you a new w2 and let you fill it out. Then it can be faxed to the office that needs it or mailed.

  As far as her not worrying about it, just speak calmly and plainly. Explain what has happened to people in the past and news stories that you have heard. Inform her that messenger services are not secure. I would also bet it is against company policy to send private information like that over a messenger.
• 

  zev

  to say nothing of the new spy ware, wild tangent, thats now bundled with the latest version, and installed for you WITHOUT your knowledge or consent.

  i was so upset about that, and finding it installed in my computer by AIM, on the last upgrade, that i removed aim, and use a clone instead.

  untill they remove the spyware, aol aim will never be on my computer again.

  it is NOT safe to transmit that kind of information by way of i.m.

  i would let loose if that had happened to me, and gave her a lession on internet security for the afternoon.
• 

  DanTheMan

  High,

  I'm sure that the info on my W-2's is correct. It's just that I changed positions in the company, so they had to do a lot of payroll stuff (GOOD payroll $tuff!) and for some reason our admin collected all our info from my boss like SS numbers and stuff. I don't know why she handled it the way she did, our payroll office (3 states away) should have had the correct info on file. Weird.

  zev,

  My boss is an unsophisticated, small town, good ol' Ohio gal, I'm sure she meant no harm. I think I'm going to approach my HR rep and tell her that I'm concerned about people using IM for any and all communication.