NH Man Made $112,000 in Bank-Account Hacking Scheme

Alexey Mineev, a  Hampton, N.H., resident, has pleaded guilty to fraud charges for his role in a scheme to empty brokerage accounts by installing Trojan keystroke-monitoring software on victims’ computers.

The hacker would infect PCs with malicious Trojan software via spam, software that monitored keystrokes after an infected computer logged on to a brokerage website.  The hackers would then sift through the information, deducing account numbers and passwords and wiring funds to “drop accounts.”

According to court documents, funds were stolen from banking and brokerage accounts between July and December 2007. He pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering on Wednesday, according to Mike Ruocco, deputy to Judge Paul Gardephe of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who is presiding in the case.

Standard anti-virus software like Symantec or Norton Antivirus working in conjunction with spam blockers can protect against this style of attack.  My advice: If your computer is running slowly, check your Task Manager.  If you see a .exe file you don’t recognize, plug it into Google.  Unless it shows up as trusted, hit “End Task” and call your IT guy.

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