As investors go online, criminals follow

As investors go online, criminals follow

  • Amid a rise in online investing and the proliferation of mobile trading apps, the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) is seeing an increase in brokerage account breaches too.
  • FINRA said that reported incidents of criminals attempting to take over clients’ accounts using stolen login information are on the rise.
  • FINRA suggested that the rise in these kinds of attacks may also be enabled by the increased availability of stolen login credentials on the dark web, along with the development of tools to automate these intrusions, “using mobile emulators to mimic mobile devices that have been compromised to access thousands of online brokerage accounts.”
  • Along with using multi-factor authentication to better establish clients’ identities, firms are also deploying back-office controls to detect suspicious activity, and even scanning the dark web themselves for signs that their clients’ accounts may be compromised.

– James Langton | May 12, 2021