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Hackers Targeting Stock Traders to Inflate Share Prices

by Dan Reilly on September 12, 2008 at 03:06 PM


Yes, that's right. We have yet another scam to warn you about. This time, hackers are using online stock brokerages to make themselves rich in a fairly simple swindle.

Just like the pump and dump investment email scam we showed you, hackers are falsely inflating stock prices by illegally accessing multiple trading accounts, buying hundreds of thousands of shares of a stock they already own, wait for the price to go up, and then sell for a big payoff. Sounds easy enough, right? That's because it is.

An Indian man was recently sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding investors with this scheme and two others have been indicted. They targeted accounts at TD Ameritrade, Fidelity and E*Trade, and drove up costs on several different stocks. Apparently, this is a growing crime trend, so keep an eye on your account, if you have one. [Source: Wired]

Tags: hackers, stock, trading

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