Copycat sites bilk consumers, businesses

CHICAGO, June 15 (UPI) -- Look-alike Web sites targeting U.S. financial institutions have cost the industry billions, security experts say.

The Chicago Tribune reported Sunday that crooks are increasingly using copycat and cloned Internet sites to steal sensitive data and consumer identities by infecting sites.

"It's not that they're heading in through the back door," said David Fisher, chief executive of the Chicago-based online brokerage OptionsXpress. "It's people coming in through the front door with a user name and password."

TD Ameritrade is awaiting the settlement of a class-action lawsuit after hackers accessed the brokerage accounts of about 6.3 million customers.

The newspaper -- citing research by Sophos, an anti-spam and anti-virus software company -- said dangerous programs infect about 6,000 Web sites each day, almost one every 14 seconds.

"Over the next few years, these issues are going to come so far to the forefront that there are going to be more efforts by lawmakers to provide specific laws to remedy these harms," said lawyer Scott Kamber, who represents customers of TD Ameritrade in a class-action lawsuit.

"It's incumbent on corporate America to get religion on fortifying their security. If they don't, it's going to get very expensive for them."