[color="DarkGreen"]Hackers Zero In on Online Stock Accounts
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A01
Hackers have been breaking into customer accounts at large online brokerages in the United States and making unauthorized trades worth millions of dollars as part of a fast-growing new form of online fraud under investigation by federal authorities.
E-Trade Financial Corp., the nation's fourth-largest online broker, said last week that "concerted rings" in Eastern Europe and Thailand caused their customers $18 million in losses in the third quarter alone.
Another company, TD Ameritrade, the third-largest online broker, also has suffered losses from customer account fraud, but a spokeswoman declined to quantify the amount yesterday. "It is an industry problem," spokeswoman Katrina Becker said. "It does continue to grow."
Federal regulators cited recent cases in which hackers gained access to customer accounts at several large online brokers and used the customers' funds to buy certain stocks. The hackers appeared to be trying to drive up share prices so they could sell those stocks at a profit, regulators said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI are looking into E-Trade's cases, chief executive Mitchell H. Caplan said in an earnings conference call with reporters last week. Spokesmen for the SEC and FBI declined to discuss details of those cases.
Both E-Trade and TD Ameritrade have guaranteed that they will cover their clients' losses, even though they are not required to do so by law. But the problem is growing faster than public awareness of it, federal regulators said, noting that the fraud is fed by the rising use of the Internet for personal finance and the easy availability of snooping software that allows hackers to steal personal account information.
"Although these schemes cleverly combine aspects of securities fraud, identity theft and hacking, what they really boil down to is outright thievery," said John Reed Stark, chief of the Office of Internet Enforcement at the SEC. "In the last couple of months we have seen a marked increase in online brokerage account intrusions."
More than 10 million people have bought or sold investments online in the United States in the last few months, according to Avivah Litan, a securities analyst for the Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.
The scams typically begin with a hacker obtaining customer passwords and user names, experts said. One way is by placing keystroke-monitoring software on any public computer in a library, hotel business center or airport. With the software, all keystrokes entered on the computer can be recorded and e-mailed anywhere in the world.
Experts said all hackers have to do is wait until anyone types in the Web address of E-Trade, Ameritrade or another online broker, and then watch the next several dozen keystrokes, which are likely to include someone's password and login name.
These emerging Internet stock schemes appear to be new versions of the widely used "pump-and-dump" e-mail scams, in which spammers send out mass e-mails containing bogus news alerts intended to manipulate stock prices.
Stark said perpetrators are breaking into customer accounts and buying shares of thinly traded, microcap securities, also known as penny stocks. The hacker gains access using the customer's user name and password, then liquidates that person's existing stock holdings and uses the proceeds to buy shares in the microcap. The goal, regulators said, is to boost the price of a stock the hacker has already bought at a lower price in another account. The hacker then liquidates the stock and wires the money either to an offshore account or through a series of straw men, or dummy corporations, Stark said. The straw man may not know he is participating in fraud; he may have been told he is helping, say, an offshore business.
The entire operation can take a matter of minutes, or at most, hours.
"The unwitting victim opens the account in the morning and finds he or she owns thousands of shares in a microcap company that they have never heard of," Stark said.
Caplan said E-Trade recently made operational changes and added technology to thwart the criminals. "We've seen that level of fraud in the last three weeks or so reduced to almost zero . . . ," he said in the conference call.
Glen Mathison, a spokesman for Charles Schwab Corp., the largest online broker, said losses due to online identity theft and fraud have not reached "a material level" that would require disclosure to investors. But he added that Schwab also guarantees to reimburse clients for online losses caused by fraud.
Unlike banks, brokerage accounts are not protected by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other federal banking rules that ensure consumers get their money back, so the consumer must rely on the company to cover any losses.
Ameritrade's Becker said the company advises clients to make sure they have good spyware detection software on their computers. Ameritrade's Web site also offers clients free software that helps detect or eliminate snooping programs.
In Canada, the Investment Dealers Association, the self-regulatory arm of Canada's securities industry, is looking into similar scams.
Online financial fraud has grown so serious that the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, a government entity that establishes standards for banks, has given U.S. financial institutions until Dec. 31 to tighten security measures for accessing online accounts.
"This thing is so widespread and it has such a significant impact on the industry at large . . . that I think you're going to end up seeing structural changes in the industry," Caplan said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301257.html
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
[ Educational sites ]
Too bad for the get rich quick crowd ....electronic money is just that "non tangible" and easily lost at the push of a button. The money disappears on paper, but not in somebody else's pocket.
Stick with land!
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him...." ------ John 8:44
Too bad for the get rich quick crowd ]
Shouldn't you mean get [color="Red"]'STUCK with land'?
http://www.homepricebubble.com/
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-All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
[ Educational sites ]
The Jewish Tribal Review
JewWatch
WhatReallyHappened
Joe Vialls Investigations
Judicial Inc .
NJ Unfiltered
Vanguard News Network
[color="Red"] http://symantec.com/
Virus protection alone won't save your ass.
See their new product addressing this particular issue. Norton 'Confidetial'.
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
[ Educational sites ]
Shouldn't you mean get 'STUCK with land'?
I don't mean homes are guaranteed, but land. I'm talking waterfront property that almost always goes up in value. I was looking at such a parcel about 7 years ago. A semi private, winterized 3 bedroom cottage and waterfront including driveway to secondary road was about $50,000 Cdn. Now, it'll fetch a $100,000 easy judgin by similar packages in the area.
Demand is always there for remote vacationesque areas. Homes that are overpriced to begin with will never actually go up in value, but drop.
Land that can be a future developers dream can also reap rewards. If its in demand, it will sell.
Otherwise, one should buy cheap, sell high (as you realistically can).
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him...." ------ John 8:44
I don't mean homes are guaranteed, but land. I'm talking waterfront property that almost always goes up in value. I was looking at such a parcel about 7 years ago. A semi private, winterized 3 bedroom cottage and waterfront including driveway to secondary road was about $50,000 Cdn. Now, it'll fetch a $100,000 easy judgin by similar packages in the area.
Demand is always there for remote vacationesque areas. Homes that are overpriced to begin with will never actually go up in value, but drop.
Land that can be a future developers dream can also reap rewards. If its in demand, it will sell.
Otherwise, one should buy cheap, sell high (as you realistically can).
[color="Black"]Google [color="Navy"]'Kondratieff wave real estate'
Your 'easy' $100,000 property will plumet to $10,000 - $25,000 (depending upon area). This will translate to a [color="Red"]80% - 50% LOSS OF THE $50,000 ORIGINAL PRICE!
This collapse will not be like the typical 10% - 20% retraction cycles, with advances following, during the past 60+ years. This is a mega cycle collapse that will continue for generations - some 60+ years. This is not your daddy's Oldsmobile real estate market.
As they say... the greatest of generals are always prepared to fight the last war, but never the next one.
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
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Ok, maybe not without risks, but a lot safer than stocks and bonds. Usually the guaranteed bonds take about 20 yrs before they accumulate anything worthy. The rest is too volatile and unpredicatable (Enron, BreEx: extreme examples).
For housing there could be many factors causing a decline. IF over inflated price drops, then you really aren't losing anything. If you buy a property for $50,000 and 10 yrs later its only worth $40,000 then yeah that's a loss. To lose ACTUAL value would mean that a landfill site or nuclear generating station or railway was built next door.
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him...." ------ John 8:44
[color="DarkGreen"]The Real El Dorado: Real Estate or Gold Equities?
I. M. Vronsky
Editor & Partner - Gold-Eagle (http://www.gold-eagle.com)
What has been the best investment in the past 5 years: Real Estate or Gold Equities?
[color="Red"] http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_05/vronsky032106.html
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
[ Educational sites ]
[color="Navy"]Gold-Silver Ratio and the Outlook at Housing in Silver Terms
by Vitali Logman
[color="Red"] http://www.safehaven.com/article-6111.htm
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
[ Educational sites ]
[color="DarkGreen"]Hackers Zero In on Online Stock Accounts
Another company, TD Ameritrade, the third-largest online broker, also has suffered losses from customer account fraud, but a spokeswoman declined to quantify the amount yesterday. "It is an industry problem," spokeswoman Katrina Becker said. "It does continue to grow."
When I saw the jew from "Law and Order" adverstising TD Ameritrade on the jew tube, that was all the info I needed for me, as a White man to stay far away from this company.
Does anyone on this board REALLY believe that "hackers" got into the sites, sounds like a typical jew "inside job" to me.
"From my experience in studying the Jews through direct observation and the study of their Talmud and literature is this: You can't think too badly about the Jews because no matter how badly you think that they are, in fact and in reality, they are much, much worse than you could ever imagine."... Banjo Billy
When I saw the jew from "Law and Order" adverstising TD Ameritrade on the jew tube, that was all the info I needed for me, as a White man to stay far away from this company.
Does anyone on this board REALLY believe that "hackers" got into the sites, sounds like a typical jew "inside job" to me.
"From my experience in studying the Jews through direct observation and the study of their Talmud and literature is this: You can't think too badly about the Jews because no matter how badly you think that they are, in fact and in reality, they are much, much worse than you could ever imagine."... Banjo Billy
Pointz well made and VERY possible - make that VERY likely! And who getz the bill for the rip... same as WTC scam - the insurance company.
When it comes to the (K)ike, [color="Red"]the greater the trust - the greater the betrayal!
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All is for naught without a good edJEW(K)shen.
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