SEC Nabs Hacker For Identity Theft

from the all-in-one-package dept

It's tough to keep track of which federal agency is arresting who these days. If you thought it was the FBI, or possibly the FTC, going after online frauds and hackers, there's also the SEC, and they're happy to announce that they've caught a hacker and busted him for identity theft. Turns out the guy convinced people to download a "stock tracker" program that was really a key logger. Using that, he stole the password to someone's online brokerage account, and used that account to "buy" some worthless stock option contracts he held. The SEC is positively thrilled that they caught the guy soon after he pulled this off. Of course, looking at the details, this seems like a pretty straightforward scam - and it sounds like the real online identity theft scam rings are a lot more sophisticated. So, it's nice to hear that they caught this one guy, but it doesn't give much comfort about how good they are at catching identity thieves in action.