How Do We Respond to Personal VPN Lockouts?
Lockouts caused by personal VPN usage, while frustrating for employees trying to do their jobs, are necessary to ensure organizational data isn’t stolen.
We’ve previously discussed how we will lock your Microsoft 365 account if you try to access it while connected to a personal VPN.
As a refresher on why we do this, we can’t tell if it’s you trying to access the account, we can only see that “somebody” located somewhere other than where your organization is physically located is trying to access the account, which looks awfully suspicious.
Until we can speak with you over the phone to verify it is you trying to access the account, it will remain locked.
However, attackers often pose as employees of a managed service provider and call clients hoping to trick them into giving away company data or financial information.
So, while you shouldn’t be afraid of phone calls from your MSP, it’s important to note that there should always be a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to a phone call from your MSP.
“Lockouts caused by personal VPN usage, while frustrating for employees trying to do their jobs, are necessary to ensure organizational data isn’t stolen.”
Hungerford Will Never Ask…
If you are locked out of your account, because of personal VPN use or for any reason, there are some things we will never ask of you.
If someone does ask any of these things from you, you should immediately hang up and call us at (616) 949-4020.
We will never ask you…
- To download anything
- To run any special programs
- For your password
- For credit card/billing information
We might occasionally ask you to go to Microsoft websites like for the web to verify password changes. However, we will never send you a link to Outlook; we’ll ask you to navigate there yourself.
And in this scenario, we would ask you to verify the new password works. We wouldn’t ask you for your new password and test it ourselves.
The best thing you can do to limit the number of phone calls you receive from us is to never access company data while using a personal VPN.
If you have any questions regarding the use of personal VPNs, please contact us at support@hungerford.tech or call us at (616) 949-4020.
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