[Gllug] how safe is linux against identity thief

[Joel Bernstein]

On 24 Mar 2009, at 11:18, Lucy Peters wrote:

> My bank account has been compromised recently. they transferred fund  
> from my account to the people I don't know. I use foxyproxy, ubuntu  
> firewall and only use the cookies from the site. I don't keep any  
> cookies from 112.207 or anything other than from the main site. I  
> wonder how the people found my details online.
>
> what else can I install to prevent identity thief from happening  
> again ?

Identity *theft* is usually a social issue. Use better/more secure  
passwords. Don't use the same password on 2 sites (nobody needs to  
"hack" your bank account if they can get your email login details and  
recover access to your bank from there), protect your personal data,  
etc. Consider switching to a bank who use some kind of secureid type  
token rather than secret keys (passwords etc).

If your bank account has had funds removed due to fraud, you'll be  
protected against this. If your bank are refusing to refund the cash  
due to you being somehow at fault (e.g. if you didn't protect your  
login details adequately) then this is likely to show you at least one  
vector to address.

I'm not sure why you think people stole your details through your PC.  
It's possible, of course, but keyloggers under Linux are rare, and the  
network level traffic will of course be SSL encrypted. If you have  
evidence that the machine is compromised then get it _off_ the  
Internet _now_ and reinstall it. If you've no reason to suspect a  
compromise then it seems more likely that your login details were too  
easy to guess. Your bank will be able to help you by providing  
relevant http access log entries from the sessions where your money  
was withdrawn.

/joel
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