The IRS hacked? According to U.S. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen that has indeed happened and has been happening for the past four months. Starting in February and going into May criminals hit the IRS website 200,000 times through its “Get Transcript” application which pulls up past returns of users. According to Koskinen of those 200,000 attempts, half of them were successful and the hackers were able to get the info the were seeking.
“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,” Koskinen said.
Koskinen says that the data stolen was being used to submit fraudulent returns and about 15,000 fake returns were processed which translated into just under $50 million dollars. The IRS hack is just more proof that these threats are indeed serious and should be a lesson to security departments in the government and private sector. Target, Home Depot, USPS and now the IRS, cyber crime and identity theft are the new way people are looking to steal. The IRS is saying they are taking measures to tighten up security so let’s hope that is true because they hold a ton of sensitive data. What do you think of the latest hack? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+ Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/26/us-usa-tax-cybersecurity-idUSKBN0OB2H520150526″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Reuters[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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