The anti-spam community has been long suspecting something’s not right with TD Ameritrade. It seems email addresses of new customers of TD Ameritrade leak to spammers very soon after they were used to create TD Ameritrade accounts. This has been going on for at least 2 – 3 years.
The leading theories for the cause of the data leaks has been either unauthorized access to TD Ameritrade customer information or a marketing partner of TD Ameritrade’s selling mailing lists to third parties.
Today the suspicions have been proven true, as TD Ameritrade published information that they have uncovered “unauthorized code” on their system allowing spammers access to their customer records. And that’s pretty much all TD Ameritrade said.
It took TD Ameritrade far too long to react to customer complaints regarding their leaking customer information. It also took them far too long to find this backdoor on their computer system. It’s incredible a leading brokerage company in the United States can operate for years without knowing spammers are tapping into their customer information in real-time.
-TPP
