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Many news outlets seem to be carrying this story:
Sophisticated criminals used an online service run by the IRS to access personal tax information from more than 100,000 taxpayers, part of an elaborate scheme to steal identities and claim fraudulent tax refunds, the IRS said Tuesday.
The thieves accessed a system called "Get Transcript," where taxpayers can get tax returns and other filings from previous years. In order to access the information, the thieves cleared a security screen that required knowledge about the taxpayer, including Social Security number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address, the IRS said.
The Get Transcript site requires certain knowledge about past returns, most of which is guessable, such as a social security number, and other fairly accessible information. Complete records of prior year are returned via Email if the thieves succeed in providing enough screening items correctly.
Old tax records enable the thieves to go after refunds, not only for the current year, but future refunds as well. Having tax returns from prior years provide a wealth of information for future identify theft.
About 200,000 attempts were made, and about half of them succeeded. The system is currently shut down, and Congress is making stern sounds. But as yet the IRS does not know if these thefts were carried out by domestic or foreign thieves.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:21PM
So? We're not talking about Netflix, here, we're talking about the IRS. It's not like they can just go pay taxes to someone else. I'm all for being responsive to the needs of the end user--unless there's a good reason not to give them what they're demanding. If user X demands immediate access to their past tax returns, and the cost is making EVERYONE'S data insecure, then there's only one rational answer: No.
For that matter, there's an IRS office 5 miles from my house. I can go there, present actual ID, and get copies of my records. Online would be nice, sure, but not at any cost.