Hackers faked 101 a thousand declarations and robbed the US tax

Фото: Depositphotos

Representatives of the US Federal Tax Service (IRS) officially confirmed - they have undergone cyber attack. The attackers used the stolen social security numbers to create fake tax documents. Forging papers, hackers transferred all tax returns and deductions of unsuspecting citizens to their accounts.

A statement appeared on the official website of the Federal Tax Service, according to which unknown attackers made an “automated attack” on the agency. Technical details are still a mystery, but the scheme of theft of funds, which was used by hackers, was described in detail.

The official website of the tax service allows you to submit electronic versions tax documents. To use this service, you must first receive a special PIN, for which the corresponding online form.

The fraudsters who carried out the attack had a large base of stolen social security numbers (SSN), and also knew other personal information of their victims.

A total of 464 thousands of unique social security numbers are reported. Representatives of the IRS emphasize that the hackers got this information somewhere independently, they did not break the Tax Service in order to steal data. However, using this information, the attackers launched a virus (malware), which automatically went through the SSN in an attempt to get the PIN codes required to fill in electronic declarations. Not all attempts were successful: the attack was a success for 101 000 social security numbers.

It would seem that hackers got the opportunity to fill out other people's tax papers, what will they do about it and why is it bad? The fact is that by gaining access to filling out other people's declarations, fraudsters were able to indicate in the documents the accounts of their own bank accounts. As a result, the tax service transferred any subsequent tax deductions and refunds to hackers' dummy accounts. How many exactly hackers managed to “earn” in this original way, is not reported.

The tax service is investigating what happened. All citizens whose declarations were compromised by the attackers have already notified the incident. Due to the threat of fraud, the accounts of the victims are now closely monitored.

Previously, ForumDaily wrote, who must file a tax return in 2016 year. We also told that the US tax administration announced about the beginning of the reception of declarations January 19 2016 years. And CNN analyzed dependence of the size of the federal tax on the amount of income and showed in the graph exactly what percentage of earned income should be paid in the form of a federal tax.

Join ForumDaily on Facebookto know more.