Phishing Scam Warning from IRS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is cautioning the taxpayers about a new phising scam. An e-mail, which claims to come from the IRS, asks taxpayers to fill an online customer satisfaction survey for $80.

The IRS asks the taxpayers to avoid this illegal e-mail and do not provide any kind of information requested in it. However, the IRS doesn't initiated contact with taxpayers via e-mail.

The IRS has advised recipients of questionable e-mails not to open any attachments or links enclosed in the e-mails. Rather, recipients of e-mails forward them to phishing@irs.gov.

The IRS, since the inception of mail box of phising@irs.gov in 2006, has got 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers. In these mails, around 240 reported phising incidents are of distinct kind.

The IRS also looks into other e-mail frauds that guide target victims disclosing personal and financial information over the Internet. This practice is known as phising for confidential or personal information.

Dan Hubbard, Vice President of Security Research at Websence, told SCMagazineUS.com, that this campaign is like to a several spear phising attacks reported recently and targeted executives working at higher posts in big organizations. Better Business Bureau (BBB), IRS and Federal Department of Justices have served as lure in those attacks.

In the last week of December 2007, BBB) of Mississippi warned consumers to remain vigilant against fraudulent e-mails that claimed to have come from IRS and asked for personal and financial information.

According to BBC, the fake e-mails said that after calculating the annual fiscal activities of the user, they have decided that the user is entitled for receiving a tax refund of $93.60. Thereafter, the recipient of e-mail is directed to phishing websites for submitting his Social Security Number and confidential bank information.

The BBB prompts the users not to click on any links enclosed in such mails and advise them to delete such e-mails without opening them.

In order to remove the phishing websites immediately when they are reported, various organizations and people, including the IRS, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and various Internet service providers are working together.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 1/10/2008