Security Experts:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Hackers Steal Personal Data From US Tax Agency IRS

Hackers stole information on 100,000 taxpayers from the online computers of the US Internal Revenue Service, the federal tax agency said Tuesday.

Hackers stole information on 100,000 taxpayers from the online computers of the US Internal Revenue Service, the federal tax agency said Tuesday.

The IRS said the unidentified cyber thieves used information on the specific taxpayers from sources outside the agency to access the accounts, which included crucial identifying information such as birth dates, addresses and social security numbers.

“These third parties gained sufficient information from an outside source before trying to access the IRS site, which allowed them to clear a multi-step authentication process, including several personal verification questions that typically are only known by the taxpayer,” the agency said.

The IRS said the theft involved its online “Get Transcript” system, which allows users to view all their transactions and reports with the agency.

The hackers tried to access about 200,000 accounts between February and mid-May, and were successful in about half those attempts.

The IRS said the “Get Transcript” service is on a separate computer system than the one that handles online tax submissions for millions of Americans each year.

“That system remains secure,” it said.

It said it has shut down the “Get Transcript” service, and its inspector general and criminal investigation offices were reviewing the case.

It did not identify the source of the information that allowed hackers to enter the accounts.

The agency is notifying owners of all 200,000 accounts to warn them about the hacking and provide free credit monitoring for those whose accounts were entered.

“It’s possible that some of these transcript accesses were made with an eye toward using them for identity theft for next year’s tax season.”

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this webinar to learn best practices that organizations can use to improve both their resilience to new threats and their response times to incidents.

Register

Join this live webinar as we explore the potential security threats that can arise when third parties are granted access to a sensitive data or systems.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Application Security

PayPal is alerting roughly 35,000 individuals that their accounts have been targeted in a credential stuffing campaign.

Cybercrime

No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

The FBI dismantled the network of the prolific Hive ransomware gang and seized infrastructure in Los Angeles that was used for the operation.