To help keep clients protected from hackers, phishers and other online predators, online discount broker TradeKing  announced it has launched a new line of security that is unprecedented in the brokerage industry. Phishing is a scam intended to obtain your personal information, usually a user name and password. In these scams, thieves develop a Web site that looks very close or exactly like an authentic site, with the same or very similar colors, logo and text. These fake sites prompt you to enter your personal information, which the thieves who created the site then can use to access your accounts.

    One way hackers now try to infiltrate your account is by sending spam emails. Here's a common scheme: when the recipient clicks on any link in the email, a keystroke-logging program downloads onto the user’s computer without his or her knowledge. That program keeps track of all keystrokes the user inputs, then emails them to the hacker, who then finds your account passwords. Beginning immediately, TradeKing clients will experience a new log-in process featuring "multi-factor authentication" that will act in essence as a five layer shield against online criminals.

    "TradeKing's goal is to provide clients with the very best online trading experience available anywhere, and a large part of that is having the highest possible level of security applied to their online accounts," said Don Montanaro, CEO of TradeKing. "We are proud to be the first broker-dealer to install these security features and believe we are making clients assets significantly safer as a result. Our clients deserve nothing less."

    TradeKing's multi-factor authentication process uses a combination of features that work in concert to create a significant barrier to illegal activity. TradeKing employs the web’s highest-grade security and encryption technologies to protect client accounts. Also, we periodically augment our account security measures and policies to stay current with these latest threats. As we enhance our security measures, we will be communicating with you via email and special homepage announcements to keep you abreast of any changes.

    Rick Little, director of product management for TradeKing states: "It should take clients only a minute or two to set up their new, more secure log-in. Once it has been set, then it's business as usual, but with an added level of comfort. We believe our approach will quickly become the industry standard for log-in security."  

It consists of five key elements:  
     - An On-Screen Keypad: This anti-phishing measure thwarts "keyloggers" by avoiding the use of the keyboard altogether for password entry. Thus, keylogging devices which capture keystrokes will not record an individual's password.
    - A Secure Image/Watermark/Site ID: These are names for the same thing; an image selected by the user and placed next to the onscreen keypad. If a user does not see or does not recognize the image they should not enter their password.
    - Three Secret Questions: A customer will be required to choose three questions from a pool of twelve. Once the question is selected the customer will then type in the answer to the question. The questions will be displayed as images to prevent illegal screen-scraping tactics.
    - One Account-based Question: All account-holders will be presented with a question about their account profile information.
    - Device Authentication: This feature is used to "tag" customers' preferred computers or devices. This allows for the possibility for simple authentication on known devices. The customer's primary device can be "cookied" so that they can access their account without using multi-factor authentication.