As Tom Taulli wrote earlier today, the number of accounts being infiltrated by computer hackers in Eastern Europe and Asia continues to rise, and your accounts at an online brokerage firm may be at risk. While E*Trade, TD Ameritrade, Schwab and Fidelity have promised to reimburse customers who lose money in their accounts due to fraud, the problem continues to grow. Who knows what the thieves will do with the information once they've gotten it by infiltrating your account?

E*Trade reported on a conference call last week that it spent $18 million in the third quarter to compensate customers affected by trading fraud, according to a report from Bloomberg. TD Ameritrade also admitted to losses, but gave no numbers. We may get more details when it reports its numbers, expected later today. Charles Schwab told Bloomberg that it didn't see "anything unusual enough to warrant a financial disclosure." Well, if I were a Schwab customer and my account were infiltrated, I certainly would consider it important enough for disclosure. I hope Schwab is being more candid with its customers. Fidelity did not comment on Bloomberg's story.

Bloomberg also reported that the FBI, the SEC and the NASD are trying to unravel exactly what is happening and how its being done. There are actually two types of fraud they are seeing. One is a classic "pump and dump," where hackers are opening an account in someone else's name and using it for illegal trading to pump up a stock. The person whose name was used for the account looks like the one responsible for the crime. Was the information used to open the account initially obtained by infiltrating an account at another online broker? No one knows for sure yet how it's done. The second type of fraud is straight theft, where hackers use personal information such as social security numbers to break into accounts. Once they have control, they sell securities and then wire the proceeds outside the U.S.

Javelin Strategy and Research of Pleasanton, California, estimates that identify theft will cost Americans $56.6 billion this year, according to Bloomberg. That doesn't even begin to account for the time it takes to clean up the mess after you've been a victim of identity theft. It can take years and hundreds of hours to get your financial history back on track. Good information about how to prevent identity theft and what to do if you are a victim is available from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Are your online accounts safe? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.