Tax pros targeted by hackers

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is warning that hackers are looking to take advantage of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to target tax professionals in a bid to steal financial information.

The IRS and its partners in the “Security Summit” program, including state tax agencies and private-sector tax groups, jointly noted that they had seen an uptick in efforts to steal data from tax professionals, as tax season continues in the midst of the pandemic.

“Identity thieves view the pandemic as a chance to exploit tax professionals as well as taxpayers,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement on Tuesday. “They are using every trick of their criminal trade to con people as well as steal valuable personal and financial information to help enable tax-related identity theft.”

Rettig emphasized that “in many ways, tax pros are one of the first lines of defense. We urge the entire tax community to take additional steps and protect their sensitive data.”

The IRS strongly urged tax professionals to take steps to secure themselves, such as using multi-factor authentication, or two steps, to log-in to secure systems.

Cyber criminals are also increasingly using malicious phishing emails posing as potential clients to tempt tax professionals to click on links or attachments to either input sensitive information, or that contain computer viruses, an issue the IRS warned individuals to be on guard against.

The hackers may also use unsecured networks to access and steal financial information or even complete and file client tax returns while changing the bank account information for refunds.