Cyber Criminals targeted nearly 100,000 U.S. taxpayers federal income tax returns from February to May 2015. John Koskinen, Commissioner for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced on Tuesday that hackers used the agency's "Get Transcript" online application 200,000 times, in an attempt to gain access to personal tax information. The application calls up information from previous tax returns. Nearly 50% of the hackers attempts were successful. The IRS intends to strengthen security measures.
Koskinen said, "We're confident these are not amateurs. These are actually organized crime syndicates that not only we but everyone in the financial industry are dealing with."
Theft of taxpayers data was intended to be used by criminals to submit fraudulent returns next year, per Koskinen.
He added that the hackers must have already had a significant amount of information about the taxpayers affected including names, addresses and Social Security numbers as well as so-called "out of wallet" data - personal information such as a person's first car or high school mascot. It is possible that identity thieves could get answers to these questions from individuals' social media accounts and compile them into searchable databases, per Koskinen.
As of this time, the IRS believes that fewer than 15,000 fraudulent returns were processed as a result of the security breach resulting in refunds of less than $50 million.
Koskinen said the IRS was originally alerted to the problem by unusual activity in mid-April, which marks the end of the annual tax-filing season.
The IRS will begin notifying affected taxpayers this week and will provide free credit monitoring and protection for the victims.
Contributed by Millennium Traders
Sections
Categories