Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

IRS Raises Estimate of Taxpayer Files Breached

US authorities said Monday a breach of taxpayer records was more extensive than originally estimated, and that some 300,000 accounts appear now to have been affected.

The Internal Revenue Service said it identified some 220,000 taxpayers whose tax records could have been stolen through its online “get transcript” system, which was shut down after news of the breach.

US authorities said Monday a breach of taxpayer records was more extensive than originally estimated, and that some 300,000 accounts appear now to have been affected.

The Internal Revenue Service said it identified some 220,000 taxpayers whose tax records could have been stolen through its online “get transcript” system, which was shut down after news of the breach.

The agency said in May the breach affected some 100,000 taxpayer accounts but on further review said it had “identified more questionable attempts to obtain transcripts using sensitive information already in the hands of criminals.”

“As it did in May, the IRS is moving aggressively to protect taxpayers whose account information may have been accessed,” said a statement on the agency’s website.

“The IRS will begin mailing letters in the next few days to about 220,000 taxpayers where there were instances of possible or potential access to ‘Get Transcript’ taxpayer account information.”

The agency said it identified another 170,000 taxpayer accounts where unauthorized parties tried but failed to fain access, in addition to some 111,000 accounts identified earlier this year.

The news comes after US officials confirmed some 21 million US government employees, contractors and others had personal information compromised in two breaches.

Officials have declined to identify the source of the hack of personnel records but it is widely believed to be part of a Chinese espionage program.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

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 the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

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

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

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

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

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

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.