Fake IRS sites soar

Dealing with the IRS is seldom a pleasant experience, but getting caught up with a fake tax man is even worse, and may bring on many complications. The Government Accountability Office (GAO)--the congressional watchdog agency--said the number of fraudulent IRS websites taken down in 2008 rose to 3,030, up more than 240 percent from 2007. This means there are a growing number of unsuspecting taxpayers being duped by fake tax agency websites into providing their identities, confidential information, and probably their money to criminals.

"Although IRS does not know of any cases where information security weaknesses have led to actual identity theft, IRS had 149 incidents of lost data affecting 911 taxpayers in 2008," the GAO report said.

And still, the IRS problems run deeper. The GAO said the IRS has information security weaknesses that increase the likelihood of employees committing identify theft. To make matters worse, the IRS has not consistently implemented controls initially intended to prevent, limit and detect unauthorized access to its systems and information.

Among the shortcomings of the IRS security system, according to the GAO, are a lack of strong password management for properly identifying and authenticating users, as well as authorizing user access. As for online abuse, the GAO said the IRS should be more consistent in enforcing security controls.

"Until IRS addresses these weaknesses, there is an increased risk that someone could use his or her access to steal personally identifiable information and commit identity theft-related crimes," the GAO said.

For more on security weaknesses at the IRS:
- see this govinfosecurity.com article

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