Wealth Managers, Beware of Hackers

“The Nigerian prince email swindle, in which a supposed royal offers riches in exchange for a bank account number, is to today’s phishing scams what a Brother word processor from the 1980s is to a MacBook.”

Paul Sullivan in The New Hork Times warns that bad people have become highly skilled at draining money from the accounts of wealth managers' clients.

A security executive at a trust company told of a hacker who got creative in trying to fool the firm. The executive, who requested anonymity, said the firm received an email from a client’s account asking that $137,000 be wired to Italy to buy some art. He said this client was part of a large family that traveled frequently, so the request was not odd on its face. But he said the family had put a procedure in place in which no wires went out without a call being made to the person requesting the money.

 One security tip for investors that hadn't occurred to me: Don't keep documents bearing your signature in your email.