Following a security breach at brokerage firm TD Ameritrade last week, which apparently provided 6.3 million email addresses of TD Ameritrade customers to hackers, Sophos believe that the database will be exploited with a wave of spam emails.

The security firm said that it "has already gained proof that hackers are trying to exploit these stolen addresses for commercial gain, with its worldwide network of spam traps blocking a phishing campaign." (See a screenshot of a sample spam email here)

TD Ameritrade said that username IDs, personal identification numbers, passwords, date of birth details and Social Security Numbers were not accessed by the hackers, but it apologized for the unwanted spam that the capture of these millions of email addresses is likely to generate.  

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