Russian Criminals Targeting U.S. 401ks and Online Traders

Im glad to hear the News Networks and FBI is making the public more aware of computer fraud. But the real truth, is that computer user’s have been fooled into beliveing that the residence Antivirus program on there computer will keep them safe… SO WRONG, The big Antivirus Companys have Lied and they know it… A computer use today Needs Mutiple Protection tools. To keep there computer safe. Im a member of a International computer help group, and we test and use mutiple tools. The public needs to know this if they wish to keep there computers truly SAFE.

Something to remember when you use a computer on the road

There’s such an easy way to combat this in the U.S.: Stop off-shore software development. And, refuse to do business with any company that endeavors in off-shore software development.

What knucklehead would trust a publicly available computer such as found at hotels and Internet cafes for such work?

I was almost a victim of this type of hack. Only thing that saved me was that I had set up email notification on my accounts for all transactions. It appears that someone hacked the telephone access, used that access to change my online password, then went online and transferred funds from a mutual fund into a money market. When I received the email on the changes to my account, I contacted the broker, advised I had not initiated these changes, and they immediately suspended access. However, it took me another 3 months, registered letters etc to get the brokerage to reverse the transfers and restore my account.
Apparently, there is a new scam where folks who make bad trades that lose money attempt to call brokerages and claim identity theft in order to reverse the trades… Hard to keep up.
Lesson learned, set up email notification on ALL access to you online accounts, change your ACCOUNT where possible to a alphanumeric account name (rather than SSN), and if your bank or brokerage offers it, go to two factor authentication (not just online password but some other personally set question)

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but do the same problems apply if your accessing through your own computer at a hotel using wifi or dial-up?

Banks in the UK have changed to a system where you not only enter a User Name and Password but also have to enter several letters in a drop down list from a pre-designated word.
Assume the word is: clinton,
you might be asked for the 2nd and 5th letter.
Yu select these using a mouse on a drop down list.
This makes a keystroke logging program fail.
Also, the next time you log on, the server asks for different letters.
On a similar issue, all UK and most European credit card trasactions now require the entry of a PIN number into a terminal, and NOT a signature, which is not required.
Wake up America and start providing decent financial security.

You have to be careful in todays world. With more and more services being done through the internet, criminals are finding out it is much easier to get someones data and money through a key logger program or a phishing trick. On top of my Norton antivirus, I also use WebRoot anti spam and logger program to block and scan for any type of trojan progams

Our Company sells, manages and monitors guest use computers for top hotels around the country. The foundation of our offering is security, privacy and reliability. Through our proprietary client management software, our systems are locked down to prevent hackers from loading any key stroke software and we electronically shred all guest user data upon ending their session. We proactively monitor and update our systems 24x7x365. My advice is that hotels provide their valuable guests with a high quality service such as ours and that hotel guests needing secure public access computers stay at a hotel offering our secure guest use computers.
Victor Alikin

If I take my computer to a hotel, log on to read my newspaper or check the email but do not log on to scottrade or my financials…. can they still track my password and wipe me out?
Or is it only if I log on to financial website with password.
I’m scared. Please tell me.

One thing we don’t understand – how do the theives cash out the stolen stocks and get the money into their own account? We have an Ameritrade account and the only place money can be directed is into our bank account. Do the thieves have the ability to withdraw funds from our bank account too?

Lets get George Bush impeached and these cronies of his thrown out of office. The Republican Party is against the American way of life. Wake up America! A & B in Alabama.

Good articles and news. Now a days we are afraid of using these facilty as hacking is getting common and eat our hard earn money which we use it very judicially and after careful thought.
ASs sugeested to change your password every ten second how it is possible and secondly very difficult to remember when you will use which pass word to acesses. If we forget password than especiaaly while in travelling you are stuck. Secondly you are engage in non productive activities and it will be very difficult to focus onbusiess for which you are travelling.
Look forward to see more ways of protections. information and method of safe guarding our hard earned money. Prime responsibilty of hotel ptroviding safety to their valuable customers,

I have an Ameritrade acct. I am usually outside of the US, on business. I sometimes need to use wire transfers to move funds from Amerit. into or out of a US or foreign bank acct. Each time I put in a request for this type of transfer, I am required by Amerit. to submit a signed letter of authorization, and the funds can only be wired to one of my preauthorized accts, and only to accts. in my own name.
Ask your financial services providers to request of you extra authorization levels for transactions. It may add time and minor inconvenience, but I believe it’s worth it.

To all of you who use “internet” in financial dealing, remember the “enigma machine”………….

how about voice recognition matching customer data bank via phone for confirmation of trade plus password plus personal question, then callback from trader/bank for verification before processing,+++ then confirmation callback that message rec’d. etc…+++? would that work for a while?

If this is happening on your own computer changing your user id
and password frequently is not going to help. Is there a scenario which describes how such a “key stroke” program could somehow get onto your home computer. Does any of the anti virus software or operating system software defend against this intrusion?..probably not.