The Internal Revenue Service says it is especially worried about the spread of an email phishing scheme to schools, hospitals and nonprofit organizations. The federal tax agency today issued an “urgent alert” warning employers about the potential for identity theft from W-2 forms.
“This is one of the most dangerous email phishing scams we’ve seen in a long time” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “It can result in the large-scale theft of sensitive data that criminals can use to commit various crimes, including filing fraudulent tax returns.”
Employees of those institutions – particularly those working in payroll or human resources departments – should be especially wary in dealing with requests for W-2 forms, the IRS announced.
The online thieves typically send an email to a worker in a payroll or HR department, asking for a list of employees and their W-2s. The main trickery involves email addresses. The thieves “spoof,” or disguise, the address to look like the email came from a company executive.
When the worker sends the list, the scammers get valuable information, such as Social Security numbers, wage data, residential names and addresses, etc., which can be used to file phony tax returns, open credit cards or steal in other ways,
The phishing ploys were around last year, too, but they occurred heavily in the corporate world. Now they’ve spread to school districts, hospitals, nonprofits, employment agencies and even tribal organizations, among others. This year, the online thieves not only are bilking a broader range of businesses, but they also are striking earlier in the tax reporting season, the IRS and a group of cooperating tax agencies and industry groups called the Security Summit warned.
Some scammers also have used a more sophisticated version. They’ve teamed up the phishing scam with a wire transfer of money, again supposedly requested by the organization’s executive. “Some companies have lost both employees’ W-2s and thousands of dollars due to wire transfers,” The IRS said in its alert.
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