Fidelity customers' financial info feared stolen in suspected ransomware attack | Hacker News Reader

Fidelity customers' financial info feared stolen in suspected ransomware attack

theregister.com

22 pointsneverrroot9 comments

Did anyone else notice that if you install Fidelity app it is tightly integrated into messaging app- such that if you wanted to uninstall “messaging” on iOS it first suggests you uninstall Fidelity app? I find this odd given I have had a major major incident with a team that must have some level of access to a lot of platforms including messaging. It is not going to surprise me if they have Infosys doing the monitoring and the person spearheading all of this pain is a guy there who thought I reported another guy for harassment in 2013 (I had not). The mobile platform and app stalking has been intensely impactful. I have to do a lot of hypothesizing, as so little transparency is offered to who is accessing your usage.

Check iOS-settings-messaging-iMessage Apps. What is this?

Are Fidelity brokerage customers also affected by this? Or just life insurance?

This is why I hate giving bank account info for payments but many service providers are starting to charge fees for using a credit card, ugh!

Keep a checking account with a little amount of money for handling all payments and a savings account at a different bank that you never give anyone the details to. Initiate money transfers into and out of checking account from the savings account website.

And don’t save your savings account login credentials wherever it can sync onto your phone (such as Keychain) and don’t use a phone app.

Transfers should be infrequent enough that you are not inconvenienced by having to log into the website.

Thatbis a good idea, just don't have the time to manage it that close. Wish I could script transfers on dates or when balances get low. I do have accounts at multiple banks.

Unless you have very volatile cash flows, you should only need to do it once or twice per month. Presumably, people are checking their accounts at least once or twice per month.

I just recently was a victim to "check washing," where a former tenant took an outgoing letter and then "washed" the check, adding his employer into the "pay to" field... original (and fake) check were for thousands of dollars (same amount).

Listening to my banker describe the [essentially lack of] features securing modern US checking, I decided then and there to remove most of the money from my checking account — all future checks will be cashier's cheque (which apparently offers much more security, including "pay to" verification before funds x-fer).

I've also stopped using credit cards, and instead use a random CC # for each transaction service (the cost is minimal for the protection).

“Criminals have probably stolen nearly 30,000 Fidelity Investments Life Insurance customers' personal and financial information — including bank account and routing numbers, credit card numbers and security or access codes — after breaking into Infosys' IT systems in the fall.”

You've got to be kidding me about the bank account and routing numbers. There would be a amssive market, I'm sure, for a service that generated proxy/one-off bank accounts and credit cards that forwarded to you (in the same way that Apple lets you do so with email addresses). Although since the banking industry is involved, I'm sure it isn't that simple.

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