The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today released a warning to alert taxpayers and tax experts to an active IRS scam campaign that sends spam messages to provide malicious charges.
This alert came after IRS received several reports this week from taxpayers concerning unsolicited notifications with topics “Automatic Income Tax Reminder” or “Electronic Tax Return Recall,” from scammers who are using spoofed email addresses impersonating the U.S. income service.
“The emails have links that show an IRS.gov-like website with details pretending to be about the taxpayer’s refund, electronic return or tax account,” says IRS’ warning.
“The emails contain a ‘ temporary password ‘ or ‘ one time password ‘ to ‘ access ‘ the refund files, but it turn out to be a malicious file when taxpayers attempt to access them.”
New Distributed malware to objectives
Moreover, after entering the password given in the spam message, the targets would unintendedly download malware that could allow malicious actors either to collect sensitive information or regulate the compromised systems of their victims.
This new scam uses dozens of compromised websites and web addresses that pose as IRS.gov, making it a challenge to shut down. By infecting computers with malware, these imposters may gain control of the taxpayer’s computer or secretly download software that tracks every keystroke, eventually giving them passwords to sensitive accounts, such as financial accounts. – IRS
“The IRS does not send emails about your tax refund or sensitive financial information,” stated IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “This latest scheme is yet another reminder that tax scams are a year-round business for thieves. We urge you to be on-guard at all times.”
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also calls on customers and administrative agencies to review the CISA Tip on how phishing and social engineering assaults can be avoided.
This warning comes after the IRS released a joint news release at the end of June with the US tax sector and state tax offices to remind professionals of tax preparers that a data security plan is needed by federal law.
Previous tax and IRS thematic assaults
Today’s alert can assist tax pros and taxpayers combat assaults intended to steal delicate information, like assault camps that target the tax season with realistic phishing e-mails that contain malicious attachments. The alert can assist both tax pros and contributions.
In 2018, tax pros launched a malicious campaign also distributing emails from the IRS that permitted threats to infect pcs of their objectives with a quick ransomware variation.
In 2017, the IRS released another warnings of a phishing attack that poses as formal IRS communications and tries to pull objectives into a link or download a malicious file that could infect them with ransomware.
The attackers also use the 2016 telephone scams as an IRS to ask prospective victims to extinguish exceptional debts by means of gift card payments by thousands of bucks.
