IRS admits taxpayer account hack far more serious than initially reported

Another day, another lie/fib/untruth exposed in government. As WSJ reports, after initially admitting that a major security breach had gained unauthorized access to 100,000 US households tax returns, The IRS has now admitted that in fact more than 600,000 breaches (blamed on Russians) were attempted and an additional 390,000 taxpayers were potentially affected. (Article republished from ZeroHedge.com.)

As The Wall Street Journal reports,

The Internal Revenue Service said identity thieves’ penetration of one of its computer databases was much more extensive than previously reported, with more than 300,000 taxpayer accounts potentially affected and more than 600,000 breaches attempted.

The IRS reported in May that cyber crooks used stolen Social Security numbers and other data acquired elsewhere to try to gain unauthorized access to prior-year tax return information for about 225,000 U.S. households. That included about 114,000 successful attempts and 111,000 unsuccessful ones.

On Monday, the agency said its review showed that an additional 390,000 taxpayers were potentially affected. That includes about 220,000 additional households “where there were instances of possible or potential access” to prior-year return data, the IRS said in a statement. It also includes about 170,000 additional instances of “suspected attempts that failed to clear the authentication processes,” it added.

…

Only a few thousand of the taxpayer accounts were the subject of attempted refund fraud. But IRS officials believe hackers in many instances were gathering the information to facilitate fraud during the 2016 tax-filing season.

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Given the extensive hacks, one wonders if they found Lois Lerner’s emails while they were in there?

Read more at ZeroHedge.com.