Phone System Security

This is not a post about mobile phone security, although one would think that is more topical.  I had a great conversation today with one of my customers and the subject of phone security came up.  Believe it or not people still try to, and succeed, at breaking into phone systems wreaking havoc and making phone calls.  During our discussion I was thinking that this sounded like something we would have discussed 10 years or 15 years ago.  Some of you may recall the hacker Kevin Mitnick, he writes about doing this in his books the Art of Deception and the Art of Intrusion. We discussed ways to lock down access to the systems and some of the features WatchGuard offers to shore up his security, since phone system manufacturers are a joke when it comes to security.  But what struck me was the fact that you can never take your eye off of the past in terms of security.  We always must look forward while making sure all doors are closed behind us.

So my question of the day is, did anyone unlock the door after you closed it?