http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=5357 By David Karsh 12/29/2005 CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Managing your money on-line can be a risky proposition. One Southwest Florida family found out the hard way after losing more than $50,000 to computer hackers. A simple login in to a familiar web site revealed a nightmare. "We looked at the account and instead of having $119,000, there was only $56,000. At that point I said what's going on?" said Jeanette Miller of Port Charlotte. Miller manages her parents' money on an investment site called E-Trade. Several major transactions were made over the past few days, but none of them were by her. "I said whatever you have going on in this account, everything from December 12 until now has not been our doing. This is theft," said Miller. In just over a week, half her parent's retirement savings has been wiped out. "My husband is 80, I'm 75. What can we do? That's all the money we have left," said Traudle Simon. Managing your money on-line is easy and convenient, but it can also be very risky. If your account falls into the wrong hands, it can be nearly impossible for investigators to track down the bad guy. "It's really pretty frustrating because it's a complicated thing to deal with," said Lieutenant Debbie Bowe of the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. Anti-virus programs and firewalls are the best defense against hackers, but once they get past those, it's way too easy for them to make off with your money. "Even though we may have a victim here, the suspect might be in a foreign country or in a state a long distance from here. There's no way we can actually investigate it," said Bowe. Which means that most victims are on their own. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that some people are learning the hard way. E-Trade has not responded to our requests for an interview, but the family said the company told them hackers broke into their account. Detectives say this is becoming quite common in our area, but very few arrests are ever made. © 2005 by NBC2 News. All rights reserved. _________________________________________ Earn your Master's degree in Information Security ONLINE www.msia.norwich.edu/csi Study IA management practices and the latest infosec issues. Norwich University is an NSA Center of Excellence.
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