By using filters, the company can recognize that it's gotten, say, more than 100 page views within a second from the same source, and then deny access. The brokerages can easily put contingency plans in place to cut down the time it takes to fix the problem, agrees Datek Online Chief Technology Officer Peter Stern. Datek suspected it may have suffered inadvertently from a service-denial attack Wednesday, but later ruled that out. In addition, he emphasized, a service-denial attack is far from being a true hack of the system, which is a lot more difficult to do. It's not like anybody has any opportunity to steal any money.
Security is job one for the online brokerages.
It has to be. Gomez doesn't disclose its clients. But controlling security also means controlling how many people have the keys to the kingdom and changing passwords so ex-employees can't get back in, explains Wayne Arden, vice president of sales and marketing for Kingland Systems Corp., which builds Web sites for financial services companies. It turned out to be little more than a costly prank. Dialing directly from your computer into your broker's system without going through the Internet is a throwback to the technology of several years ago.