The U.S. Justice Department has stepped up enforcement against the schemes, which combine elements of 21st-century identity theft and old-fashioned stock fraud; the department unsealed its first criminal charges in March. Five civil complaints have been brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission since December.

The fraud relies on a variation of the old pump-and-dump scheme in which criminals illegally hype a stock to inflate its price. In the latest twist, crooks install keystroke-logging programs on computers in hotel business centers and Internet cafes. When an investor uses the public computer to check stock holdings or make a trade, his or her username and password are captured.

Read more here (Blomberg)