This project highlights an innovative cell phone based food security monitoring strategy implemented in Ebola-affected countries by the World Food Program's mVAM (mobile vulnerability mapping and analysis program). MVAM began piloting cell phone based food security monitoring in difficult to reach settings beginning in 2013 after securing funding from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund. In 2014, during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, mVAM implemented mobile monitoring of food price, dietary intake changes and other coping strategies, prices of key commodities and market value of labor. Sample respondents were selected from a mobile subscriber database maintained by GEOPOLL, a cell phone global survey company. In each of the three countries, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, a sample was drawn in an attempt to establish a panel for monthly monitoring. In order to accommodate attrition, additional respondents were recruited to fulfill sample quota requirements of approximately 1000 households per round. SMS, Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) and live cell phone call operators we applied in the different settings. The mVAM food security monitoring was the only source of routine food insecurity information available during the height of the epidemic. Analysis of the indicator data suggests that respondent bias was significant but didn't change overall conclusions about trends and crude thresholds of food insecurity. Use cases of mVAM information were demonstrated the utility of the information for guiding food security interventions during the epidemic. This novel application has wide ranging implications for monitoring difficult to reach populations during crises.