While Americans tend to trust the government with their data, it doesn't mean the government's database is secure.
IRS commissioner John Koskinen revealed on Tuesday that a group of cyberthieves stole more than 100,000 taxpayer accounts from the IRS database. The group of thieves were then able to file a series of faulty returns and get away with almost $50 million.
"This is not a security breach. Our basic information is secure" said Koskinen during a call with journalists after the theft.
"The fraudsters were exploiting a specific application, the Get Transcript program, to be able to dig up more information on taxpayers, including their full tax returns dating back five or more years," according to Koskinen. The Washington Times reports that the thieves tried to get access to more than 200,000 accounts, but only had success accessing 102,000 of the accounts before they were locked out. Of the 102,000 hacked accounts, only 15,000 sent in faulty returns. While that is a minute amount when compared to the number of taxpayers in America, it was still more than enough for the cyberthieves to cause havoc and get away with millions.
Koskinen also said that the IRS discovered the breach "after noticing odd Internet activity from the tax filing season. They didn't find the activity until the middle of this month, however, and have scrambled to get a handle on what happened."
The IRS is currently sending notices to all of the stolen accounts, letting them know about the breach.
While this development is saddening, it isn't surprising. Security experts has alerted the IRS to the flaws in the system multiple times, but the IRS failed to update it's system enough to make up for the security holes. In fact, this break has inspired a few congressmen to encourage the IRS to improve their system.
