Warning issued by IRS on the latest Tax Transcript Scam

The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) issued a warning on the latest "tax transcript" scam. Cybercriminals are now sending fraudulent emails, which seems to have come from the IRS in this latest scam. In this scam, the cybercriminals claim that the email attachments were tax transcripts so that the recipients click and open the files containing malware which might infect their computers.

In the last few weeks, emails that seem to be coming from "IRS Online" were received by the taxpayers. The scam email comes with an attachment with "Tax Account Transcript" or a related tag as its label, whereas the subject of the email uses variation of the "tax transcript" phrase.

Tax transcripts summarize your tax records as well as tax history. The tax transcripts were available online, and the taxpayers require access of an email account for registering with the Internal Revenue Service. However, IRS reminds the taxpayers that it never sends unsolicited emails to public; and a sensitive document, like tax transcript, would never be emailed by the agency.

The IRS further said that in case you receive any email like this never open that email or its attachment. Instead, if you are working on your personal computer, delete this email or forward this scam email to the email address - phishing@irs.gov. On the other hand, in case you are using your work computer then inform the technology professionals of your company as early as possible. The reason behind this is businesses particularly get harmed by this scam, as the malware could spread all over the network in case any of the employees at workplace opens it. Moreover, it potentially takes months to remove the malware successfully.

The malware known as Emotet usually poses as specific financial institutions and banks for tricking people into opening the infected documents. As per the IRS, "scores of these Emotet emails were forwarded to phishing@irs.gov recently".

As per the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), Emotet malware is considered to be "among the most costly and destructive malware affecting state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments, and the private and public sectors".

» SPAMfighter News - 11/29/2018