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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has increased its estimate of the amount of taxpayers affected by a security flaw [npr.org] to about 330,000:

The IRS says more taxpayers than it originally believed had their data stolen by hackers. The agency now says the total is now more than 300,000.

In May, when it first revealed the breach, the IRS reported some 114,000 taxpayers had their data stolen. But in what the IRS is calling a "deeper analysis" of the breach, it identified an additional 220,000 cases where hackers got access to taxpayer records. The agency says hackers tried, but failed to access the data of some 280,000 more taxpayers.

The hackers got into the accounts by clicking a link on the IRS website called Get Transcripts. The link allowed taxpayers to get copies of their own back tax returns to use, for example, in applying for loans.

The hackers, who the IRS believes may have been part of an organized crime syndicate possibly based in Russia, were sophisticated.

Previously: IRS Coughs up 100,000 Tax Returns to Thieves [soylentnews.org]

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