Security News
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the indictment of several India-based call centers and their directors for targeting Americans with Social Security, IRS, and loan phone call scams. The call centers allegedly placed scam robocalls that were rerouted through an already-indicted VoIP service provider to make it appear as if the calls were coming from U.S.-based entities.
The Internal Revenue Service is warning of ongoing phishing attacks impersonating the IRS and targeting educational institutions. "The phishing emails appear to target university and college students from both public and private, profit and non-profit institutions," the US revenue service warned.
With the arrival of tax season, the IRS has sent out a dire notice to tax professionals warning them of a new wave of digital scams involving people trying to steal Electronic Filing Identification Numbers. Agency officials said they have seen a wave of fake emails with the subject line, "Verifying your EFIN before e-filing," that purport to come from "IRS Tax E-Filing." The IRS said tax professionals have become "Prime targets" for cyberattackers looking for information that would make it easy to steal identities and file falsified tax returns for refunds.
The Internal Revenue Service has warned US tax professionals of identity thieves actively targeting them in a series of phishing attacks attempting to steal Electronic Filing Identification Numbers. Scammers started this ongoing phishing campaign right before the US tax season with the end goal of stealing both client data and tax preparers' identities.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said this week that beginning in 2021 it will allow all taxpayers to apply for an identity protection personal identification number, a single-use code designed to block identity thieves from falsely claiming a tax refund in your name. Currently, IP PINs are issued only to those who fill out an ID theft affidavit, or to taxpayers who've experienced tax refund fraud in previous years.
The man who headed an international criminal call center racket that conned Americans into handing over tens of millions of dollars in the belief they were being chased for money by the US government has been jailed for 20 years. 24 of some 60 individuals charged in relation to the scam - essentially, those who were based in the US - have been found guilty and sentenced.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has announced today that sensitive information will be masked on all business tax transcripts starting next month to protect companies from identity theft. This type of identity theft occurs after fraudsters gain access to a business' bank accounts and credit cards or following sensitive company information theft, including but not limited to tax identification numbers and the owners' personal info.
Aggressive scammers are impersonating the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in e-mails designed to trick potential victims into paying fabricated outstanding amounts related to missed or late payments. The phishing emails target users of Microsoft's Office 365 platform and have so far reached an estimated number of up to 70,000 mail inboxes according to researchers at email security company Abnormal Security.
In this attack, the initial email promised an important update on the recipient's COVID relief funds to be disbursed to the person's address. The initial email snuck past Microsoft 365 email security because it didn't follow the usual traits of traditional phishing attacks, according to Armorblox.
A credential-phishing email campaign is making the rounds, using the lure of coronavirus tax relief to scam people into giving up their personal information. The emails purport to contain an important document about COVID-19 relief funds from the IRS. Clicking the link in the email leads readers to a SharePoint form that they were told to complete before accessing the document, according to Chetan Anand, co-founder and architect at Armorblox.