Now here’s a scary thought… phishers trying to take advantage of the tax season by trying to exploit the IRS. Hopefully the IRS has been fully trained on what to look for when it comes to phishing attacks, but if you are familiar with spear phishing attacks, you’ll know that they are not so easy to identify. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…

WASHINGTON D.C. — The United States’ tax-collecting agency, the Internal Revenue Service, warned security experts on Wednesday that fraudsters have increasingly targeted tax payers using phishing attacks that masquerade as messages from the IRS.

Speaking at the Black Hat DC conference, a federal agent said that phishing activity has increased more than 12 fold over the last year. While the agency only had to deal with a single phishing site in each of 2003 and 2004, the IRS has closed down more than 1,630 sites to date, Andrew Fried, special agent for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration told attendees. About 1 percent of all fraudulent e-mail attempts to use the IRS name to steal information or account credentials from users, he said.[more]

Tags: Identity Theft