Recently, a warning has been issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) asking American tax payers to be aware of tax time phishing scams.
Phishing Scams, run by cybercriminals, are attempts to collect your Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, banking and financial information along with other sensitive data by pretending to work for the IRS and sending bogus emails that look just like the real thing.
The IRS absolutely states, "The IRS does not send unsolicited email about tax account matters to individual, business, tax-exempt or other taxpayers."
Be cautious about:
-The Refund Email - a message appears to be from the IRS advising the recipient that he is eligible for a refund and to complete an online form that asks for personal financial information. Con artists accessing bank and/or credit card accounts would use this personal data.
- The Audit Email - this message that also appears to be from the IRS but instead of offering the good news of a refund, it leads a recipient into providing personal financial information via online forms out of fear of being audited. Again, the personal data is used by cybercriminals to steal identities and raid financial accounts.
- The Change to Tax Law Email - still another phony message from the IRS that targets businesses and accounting departments that instructs them to download changes to tax laws, but is really malware that infects the PC and gives remote access to hackers to gather passwords and key information.
Clicking on a link embedded in an email could misdirect you to a spoof IRS site that could allow hackers access to your passwords or install a virus infection onto your pc without your knowledge.
