Tag: fraud
IRS Suspects Russian Identity Thieves In Data Breach
(Jimmybionic)You may remember that the Internal Revenue Service announced late yesterday that about 100,000 taxpayers’ personal information was breached when thieves armed with their personal information were able to log in to the IRS transcript system and extract even more sensitive information about their victims. Today, we learned that the IRS suspects that an organized group of hackers out of Russia are responsible for the 200,000 attempts to extract taxpayer data. The Associated Press is reporting this based on information from IRS officials who aren’t authorized to talk to the media on the record, but who are familiar with the investigation. The thieves already had to have some information about the planned victims, since they needed personal data such as name, street address, and Social Security number to
104,000 Taxpayers’ Personal Info Stolen from IRS Website
Filed under: Identity Theft, Taxes, Security, IRS, Ripoffs & Scams J. David Ake/AP By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER WASHINGTON — More than 100,000 taxpayers have had their personal tax information stolen from an IRS website as part of an elaborate scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds. The information was stolen from an online system called “Get Transcript,” where taxpayers can get tax returns and other tax filings from previous years. In order to access the information, the thieves cleared a security screen that required knowledge about the taxpayer, including Social Security number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address, the IRS said Tuesday. “We’re confident that these are not amateurs,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “These actually are organized crime syndicates that not only we, but
