Interbank Security Breach

I'm surprised nobody has brought this up, a couple of days ago I got a letter off IB informing me that one of their employee's had made public account information and that I should change my account passwords. This doesn't make anybody else uncomfortable? I'm closing the account on Monday.

Edit: 'Interback', good one Craig, sorry about the spelling.

Yes. I got the same letter. Actually, I am quite impressed with how IBFX handled the situation, especially since I bash them regularly on this forum.

There are many companies who have breaches like this and try to cover it up or hide. IBFX did the opposite. They notified all affected account holders and offered to pay for a credit monitoring service for 12 months and to reimburse anyone who was charged to put a hold on their credit card.

First class move in my opinion.

This unsecured web server problem did not happen this year. Newer accounts were not involved. Since I was one of the people effected they notified me by mail. They gave me a years free membership with Equifax. Which included credit protection, monitoring and insurance. Since it was account application information I'm not sure passwords would have been involved. I think it is a good idea to change your passwords every few months regardless. I am comfortable with the way it was handled. I am keeping my accounts with them.

EDIT:
I guess I could have said 'I agree with Frank'. His post was not there when I started.

Can you give an example?

How do you know? It mentions nothing about this in the letter, this would make me even more nervous given the amount of time it has taken to notify me.

Also:
1. At no point in the letter do they say they have removed the person responsible from the organization.
2. At no point do they say they have modified their security practice to prevent it happening again.

Apparently you got a different letter. My letter included the approximate date that the file was placed on an unsecured area of the server. After reading my letter and talking to them I stand by what I wrote in my last post. I am satisfied. If you do not believe they are telling the truth then nothing I can say will change your mind. I do not work for them so I have no proof or special information. After re-reading my letter for this post I did see where they recommended changing my password, as you stated in your first post.

I'm sure we have no idea how many other companies only announce the problem after their lost data is used for illegal purposes. Read the PDF below for a study that was featured on my local news last month. It is a hard to determine how stolen information was attained even when reported by the public. In this case there have not been any reports of the information being stolen or used illegally.

Before this letter I have only had a college and one other business notify me some of my information had been lost or made available to the public.

I have not claimed they are not telling the truth, this fantasy is of your own making, what I am trying to understand is your assertion that 'This unsecured web server problem did not happen this year', we agree this is what you posted above?

From the letter...
First sentence paragraph 2 'The indecent involved an electronic file dated April 2, 2007...'.
First sentence paragraph 3 'Upon learning on March 28, 2008 that this information was available...'

Now if we discard your what I will assume is an attempt to be ironic in suggesting that we both got different letters, both the above statements contradict your initial assertion that the event 'did not happen this year'. So I ask you again, why do you think 'This unsecured web server problem did not happen this year'?

To my somewhat flawed understanding of English, the above two quotes tend to suggest that the incident was discovered fairly recently and involved a file originating some time in 2007, nowhere in the letter do they attempt to assert the time at which the aforementioned file was actually made public.

Also I am not sure what the point of including the document above is, at no point do I try and assert this is a problem unique to Interbank, as I said, the wording of the letter does not convince me that the correct actions have been taken post discovering the leak, but I will concede this is my interpretation of what is contained within the letter.

Just a misunderstanding. I consider the problem happened when the file was put on an unsecured web server so the error or problem occurred last year according to both our letters which I now believe to be the same.

I thought we may have been looking at different letters because you said in your first post "a couple of days ago I got a letter off IB". I was not sure because mine came more than a 2 weeks ago.

Mine came a couple of days ago, but I do live in New Zealand.

So an old data file (from april 2007) that included web account information was placed in a public area of the website (unsecured). This was discovered recently and they notified those in the file to change their web account password and monitor their ID to prevent possible ID theft.

There is no indication that anyone specific has accessed the file?

i have no problem the way interbank handle this. your be surprise at how many ex employee's walk away from a company with sensitive information.

Yes. This truly happens all the time in the US. Its on the news about once a week. Its becoming almost regular (which is scary).

Again, there are many ways to handle the situation and IBFX did a first class job in responding to the problem.

I mean lets get serious what type of legit Broker of any kind runs their head quarters out of Utah? I hear that theres alot of action in commodities these days in Chicago? they have this thing called the CME now i guess its pretty big... Forex only FCMs make me shiver...

...Ask the Forex Savior, with all the oncoming regulation you would be stupid to be working with a Forex Only FCM. Infrastuctor changes are going to kill them when banking rules change. PLUS they dont have the business models or industy relationships to continue making money when they arent booking business and running stops. i can wait to see them all go belly up!!!!

How to get the $125?

I'm sorry - I'm going to feel some umbrage at your rant. As posted elsewhere on this forum, I work for a forex only FCM based in Florida (according to net cap, one of the bigger firms), and the attitude that you have to be based in Chicago before you're considered legit is just unbelievable to me. For example, a number of international banks are based in Miami (and I'm talking very legit banks like Santander, which base their US operations down there), we have a number of major regional bank offices here in Orlando. Just as I don't see any issue with our company being based in Orlando, I don't see any real problem in basing yourself in Utah - a good chunk of the industry is electronic anyways, so you could be in Juneau, Alaska and still have excellent execution. (I mean no disrespect to those of you in Juneau). When I worked for a mutual fund company before, we weren't based in New York, we were based in Tallahassee, FL, which is by no means a financial center, and we were handling billions of dollars in client funds. There seems to be an elitist attitude that I've seen at times on this forum that if you're not in Chicago or New York in the United States, you're just a fraudulent financial company. I can assure you, I can easily find fraudulent firms in the financial industry in equal numbers in NYC or Chicago.

I also take offense to the idea that every forex-only FCM is sitting around "running stops" and that we just sit around trying to eat up the client - I don't sit around on a daily basis thinking up ways I can screw a client over. Heck, I spend most of my day explaining basic concepts and ideas to the client so they can BETTER understand this market on our platform. I cannot speak for interbank, but in my experience here at i-Trade, we take great pride here in trying to do what we can to assist the client. We're constantly brainstorming for new ways to improve our product offering. It's a business, but we also won't be around long as a business if we don't have some reaction to what clients want. That's part of the reason why I'm coming on to FF and talking about industry - because while I'm understanding of the concerns people have about this market and the industry, I want to make sure to correct some of the misconceptions that people have.

Any infrastructure changes that you mentioned are a) not guaranteed at this time and b) don't really look like they're going to wreck the legitimate FCMs. I have my own theories about what will happen in this market and industry, and based on how we talk about industry practices and how diligently we work to improve ourselves and our business, I have no doubt that we will be here in the years to come. I cannot see the future, but I just do not see the sweeping changes that you imply.

I can't answer you as to how i-Trade is expanding its "industry relationships", but if you honestly think that the forex only FCMs are just sitting around, not working to extend and expand business relationships across the financial community, then we clearly have a difference of opinion.

I can't really comment on Interbank's situation, because quite frankly, I don't know any more than anyone else out there. Voldemort though CLEARLY has an issue with forex-only FCMs that is bleeding over into his postings, and some of those statements that he makes are just not true of every single FCM out there. They're certainly not true here, from my perspective. I'm sorry if my passion gets the better of me, but this post is exactly what pushed me to start posting here.

Old saying: Don't feed the trolls.

Obviously not all FCMs need to be in Chicago, and not all good ones are either. It's easy to let one's personal experience paint a broad picture, but just because you're a hammer doesn't mean the world's a nail.

Heh. I can understand not wanting to feed any trolls, but trust me, people do read these things, and then I'll get a call from a client with nothing more than an internet post asking me some question that has nothing to do with me or my company and isn't applicable to his or her situation. Then I have to spend a long period of time explaining why said poster on a random internet posting isn't right, all without badmouthing said internet person because I have no idea who they are. It's like trying to defend yourself against shadows.

I can only imagine what its like at Interbank right now on their phone lines. I bet its not pleasant...