In total, cyber criminals may have accessed tax data for more than 700,000 taxpayers by hacking the agency’s “Get Transcript” tool, which allows taxpayers to obtain copies of previous tax returns, the IRS said. “It is possible that some of those identified may be family members, tax return preparers, or financial institutions using a single email address to attempt to access more than one account”, the IRS said in a statement on Friday, according to Wired.
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After their initial investigation, an IRS spokesperson clarified that crooks accessed the accounts of 114,000 taxpayers, and also targeted, but failed to access another 111,000 accounts.
The unidentified electronic attackers got in, giving the IRS an embarrassing black eye, by taking taxpayer information they acquired elsewhere and using it to correctly answer personal identity-verification questions in the “Get Transcript” application on the agency’s website.
Friday’s revelation of the additional accounts potentially breached was the result of a nine-month investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The new number increases the amount of suspected targets to 720,000 since the discovery of a data breach in 2015.
The hack attack was discovered last May. Free identity theft protection services will be offered, as well as special “Identity Protection PINs”.
Get Transcript has been down since May 2015, but the IRS said it hopes to revive the once-popular app eventually. Approximately 101,000 of those efforts, which occurred in January, succeeded in accessing an e-file ID number, the IRS said.
The agency said it will send mailings to affected taxpayers beginning February 29.
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The sensitive information can be used for identity theft or to claim fraudulent tax refunds. “We are moving quickly to help these taxpayers”.
