Till date data thieves were involved in accessing your bank account details and other personal information, now they are after your Tax information as well.
American Consumers were left in surprise when they got to know that about 100000 U.S tax payers information is illegally accessed by data thieves. This is latest in theft related to consumer’s data.
The security breach took place through an application called Get Transcript which provides tax information of previous returns. The intruders tried 200000 times to gain access of the information and they were successful half of the times. The data outside Get Transcript is absolutely safe as told by U.S IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday.
The Get transcript said that they will investigate the entire issue and would on strengthening the security of application. Koskinen has not commented over identity of data thieves but suggested that they are not just amateurs; they are part of crime syndicates who steal financial information to misuse it. Criminal investigation related is in process.
The data theft took place as data thieves wanted to steal data to submit fake returns for next year. The agency will process 15000 returns to the clients. The IRS security problem is latest as known companies like JP Morgan Chase, Target & Home Depot also got theft by such data thieves. The information isn’t hacked through computer, whereas data thieves used the information they have gained about users to intrude in Get Transcript application.
To comfort the victims agency will provide free credit monitoring and protection for victims and will notify the affected taxpayers. They initially got warned against possibility of such activity in Mid-April. The thieves have gained a lot of information about client like names, addresses, social security numbers and personal information to open and access their accounts.
Koskinen has shown a possibility of identifying thieves as they could be on social accounts and will need to be searched on databases.
