I've just been ripped off - identity theft...needs some advice from the brain trust

[cantdrv55]

Thieves requested a wire transfer yesterday withdrawing from my wife's IRA account. They sent a fax using my eFax account and sent it to the brokerage house that we use. They planned this to occur on a Friday, I guess to make for an easier getaway. I have no idea how the thieves could've gotten my wife's IRA account info and password PLUS my eFax number. We called the brokerage house just now and since it is Friday evening, we will have to wait until Monday to find out the resolution.

We could be out almost her entire retirement account plus some jacka$$ is walking around with our financial info and who knows what else. We have a secure wireless router. My wife knows my eFax number but she doesn't know her IRA account number. I have all that info but I have shared it with no one. We are extra careful in that we shred anything that has any personal info. How else could we have prevented this?

[Joeaksa]

Have you checked your credit statements? Any "interesting" activity on them? Get all three of them and pore over them for signs of shifty things.

Lock down everything, and call everyone and alert them that this has happened. Change passwords on EVERYTHING. Make sure that the password contains one capital, one number and a space or _!!!

Joe

[mikester]

Don't use a passWORD use a passPHRASE!!!

Two or more words and include some numbers, capitals or special characters.

for example:

ThisIsAP@SSPHRAS3

Much harder to beat than a regular password.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by cantdrv55

but she doesn't know her IRA account number.

Nope, that blows my theory. She's not running away with someone

[RANDY P]

change every credit card#, every bank account number, call the police and track which account it was to be wired to. Put an Identify theft notice with the credit reporting agency.

Also, get a POB mailing address, put the bills there. One more address they have to determine if this ever happens again.

[Sonic dB]

Check your computers...you probably have keystroke logging virus software that was installed on it without your knowledge. Run a virus scan and you will probably find it...best thing to do is reformat the hard drives and put a credit freeze on your account with the 3 reporting agencies. This is what happened to me.

[Dottore]

Long term: there's a great T.C. Boyle novel by the name of "Talk,Talk" that deals with identity theft very comprehensively. Lot's of good information.

[svandamme]

wifi is hackable, 64 bit wep is laughable, 128bit slightly less
wpa is harder, but once you run the rainbow tables, it crumbles too

all you need is a fast laptop with the right wifi card, bit of software and time...


hardly anybody will get a password over wifi, they'de have to hack the wireless which means they 'de have to sit in a van or something in front of your house (doubt the neighbour did it)...
then sit around once it's hacked, to get enough traffic...

then they'de have to hack the encryption of the SSL connection where you posted the password on a website

more likely is a trojan, that logged keystrokes, like sonic said...

or some kind of virus that misrouted your browser to a fake website... and you gave em the password yourself that way...


either way , wifi hacking is doable, just not practical for this purpose... to time consuming, to much risk of exposure for the attacker...
why sit in wifi range of one mark, when you can can attack multiple marks from the safety of the batcave?


the only reason for encrypting wifi, is to prevent pervs or geeks from stealing your bandwith...
and you don't need encryption for that, mac address access control and running without dhcp works just the same for that... and it's faster

[Joeaksa]

Also if they have gotten this far, check your Pay Pal and Ebay accounts if you have one. In other words, check EVERYTHING that is valuable and secure it.

[HardDrive]

Like Joe said, check it all, and change your passwords to passphrases along the way. Imediately get a copy of your credit report and make sure no one has taken out loans or credit cards in your name.

Its unlikely anyone went after your wireless. Almost certainly an infection on one of your computers. Update the anti-virus, run spyware check, run anti virus scan on everything.

[cantdrv55]

How about a recommendation on anti-virus software? There are so many choices that it's overwhelming. What's the best? I'll pay big bucks or whatever we have left.

[Neilk]

You can go to Annualcreditreport.com to get your free credit report from all 3 agencies. It's a gov't mandated site.

[Zeke]

I think the credit freeze is a must do, first line of defense against any more fraud. What has happened to your funds, I wouldn't know, but you'd think there was some kind of fraud insurance available on your account.
I'd work thru the credit issues one at a time, but you won't even be able to use a gas card on credit if you freeze, so make sure you have a debit card for things like that and make sure your bank is notified that you want to keep that open (if you do). You can get new accounts in a heartbeat from each company.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by cantdrv55

How about a recommendation on anti-virus software? There are so many choices that it's overwhelming. What's the best? I'll pay big bucks or whatever we have left.

AVG has a free download. I use it on all of my machines and never had a problem.

http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html?hhTest=1

Also run Lavasoft Ad-Aware. Its also free and gets rid of the spy ware.

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2008/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?hhTest=1

Get both now and stop typing ANYTHING on any computer that could be harmful to you later as you may have a key logger on your computer.

[cantdrv55]

Thanks guys. I think it was my wife's computer, used to be my son's, that has been compromised. Who knows what sites he had been on before my wife inherited it.

By the way, is it true that Macs are impregnable due to the OS? If so, I may have to buy another Mac, this time for my wife. My work laptop has so much security that I don't have to worry too much about it.

[Joeaksa]

Nothing is impregnable if someone wants it bad enough.

If the wife has been using the sons computer, then that is where I would start. First download the two programs above, then pull the internet cable from the computer to stop any communication from there on out with the internet.

Install the two programs and see what you find there.

Your work laptop can be comprimised, it just takes more work. Be careful what you do on which computer and you should be ok, but you never know.

[cantdrv55]

Thanks!

[ZOA NOM]

I swore off antivirus software long ago, and I've never had an issue. It's just too coincidental for me that the antivirus companies seem to figure out the antidotes so quickly. Besides, they eat CPU time like nobody's business.

[masraum]

I went without A-Virus software for a long time with no problems. I have a firewall on my PC, keep my PC patches up to date, and have lots of stuff setup to be safe. I also use Firefox instead of MSIE. I finally decided that I might be pushing my luck, so I went to Trend Micro which is what lots of companies use. I'd avoid Symantec/Norton.

The Microsoft spyware/adware stuff is actually really good (and free). I used to use Ad-aware, but eventually uninstalled it and went to only the Microsoft stuff. I think it's benefit is that it's thoroughly integrated with the OS.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx

[DavidI]

Here are some important numbers for you....

1.) Equifax: 800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 888-397-3742

3.) Tr ans Union: 800-6807289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line):800-269-0271

Cancel your credit cards.

File a police report with your local police department. Let us know what they say and we can give you some more advice, David