Computer Security IRS Recants May 2015 Claim of 100,000 Taxpayer Records...

IRS Recants May 2015 Claim of 100,000 Taxpayer Records Stolen, Now Acknowledging 700,000 Compromised Records

irs data breach 700k records stolenThis year's tax season is in full effect as we are about half way until that dreaded deadline to file your taxes. Amidst the looming tax filing deadline, the IRS is recanting their previous announcement of about 100,000 taxpayers having their data breached in a hacking incident that took place May of 2015 now claiming that about 700,000 taxpayers were affected.

For many reasons, government entities and departments in the U.S. are prime targets for hackers. There was announcement back in May of 2015 of the IRS being breached where hackers supposedly made off with 100,000 US citizen account records through the Get Transcript service, which we reported on at the time. The attack was from a sophisticated organized crime syndicate organization.

During the attack last year, the IRS claimed that cybercrooks made an attempt to collect more than the initial 100,000 records, settling on the number of about 200,000. However, the IRS said that the cybercrooks were only able to get half of the initial target. As it turns out, the IRS was completely wrong and have recanted their original claims now making a claim to as many as 700,000 taxpayer records were compromised in the IRS data attack.

One of the more surprising aspects of this new claim is that in August of 2015 the IRS backtracked again and claimed that 300,000 records were stolen by the data breach. We went along with the reports and posted details on our site at the time. While the second update drew our suspension, the latest news of 700,000 taxpayer accounts being compromised raises several red flags as we are now losing any basic respect we had for the IRS reporting data breaches.

Not only were the IRS' initial estimates way off, but they seemed to have pandered up until now with multiple reports of their Get Transcript service being attacked. In an IRS statement, the cybercrooks supposedly managed to access 390,000 accounts and then failed to log another 295,000. In total, that equates to nearly 700,000 accounts.

Adding to the surmounting issues of the IRS being attacked by cybercrooks, the IRS has reported another similar incident where crooks accessed E-filing PINs for 464,000 US taxpayers. We also reported on this juncture where cybercrooks utilized an automated attack and victimized computer users through aggressive spam messages and phishing site campaigns.

The IRS' report claimed that no taxpayer data was compromised. Though, in knowing how the IRS has recanted their original stance with an attack that took place last year, we will take their reporting with a grain of salt.

Do you think the IRS is withholding additional information on data breaches? Are you afraid that your information may be in the mix of compromised data and the IRS is not being honest?

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