IRS: Selfies Now Optional, Biometric Data to Be Deleted

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service IRS said Monday that taxpayers are no longer required to provide facial scans to create an account online at irs.gov. In lieu of providing biometric data, taxpayers can now opt for a live video interview with ID.me, the privately-held Virginia company that runs t...

IRS abandons facial recognition plans for online services

If you dislike the use of facial recognition technology in relation to essential services, youre in luck. One such proposition has been removed. Last year, the IRS announced it would be using facial recognition selfies to confirm identity. If you wanted the convenience of making payments online,...

IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access

The Internal Revenue Service IRS said today it will be transitioning away from requiring biometric data from taxpayers who wish to access their records at the agencys website. The reversal comes as privacy experts and lawmakers have been pushing the IRS and other federal agencies to find less...

U.S. Authorities Charge 6 Indian Call Centers Scamming Thousands of Americans

A number of India-based call centers and their directors have been indicted for their alleged role in placing tens of millions of scam calls aimed at defrauding thousands of American consumers. The indictment charged Manu Chawla, Sushil Sachdeva, Nitin Kumar Wadwani, Swarndeep Singh, Dinesh Manoh...

IRS Will Soon Require Selfies for Online Access

If you created an online account to manage your tax records with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service IRS, those login credentials will cease to work later this year. The agency says that by the summer of 2022, the only way to log in to irs.gov will be through ID.me, an online identity verification...

Compound DeFi Platform Gives Out $90M

Compound, an Ethereum-based decentralized finance DeFi platform, accidentally gave out $90 million to its users in a botched upgrade. Now, the owners would appreciate it if they gave it back. Compound might even be willing to throw in a 10 percent “reward,” it said. On the flip side, those who...

Identifying the Person Behind Bitcoin Fog

The person behind the Bitcoin Fog was identified and arrested. Bitcoin Fog was an anonymization service: for a fee, it mixed a bunch of peoples bitcoins up so that it was hard to figure out where any individual coins came from. It ran for ten years. Identifying the person behind Bitcoin Fog serve...

Feds Arrest an Alleged $336M Bitcoin-Laundering Kingpin

The alleged administrator of Bitcoin Fog kept the dark web service running for 10 years before the IRS caught up with him...

$4,000 COVID-19 'Relief Checks' Cloak Dridex Malware

Cybercriminals have wasted no time in hopping on the American Rescue Plan – the COVID-19 relief legislation just signed into law – as a lure for email-based scams. According to researchers at Cofense, a campaign began circulating in March that capitalized on Americans’ interest in the forthcoming...

The Taxman Cometh for ID Theft Victims

The unprecedented volume of unemployment insurance fraud witnessed in 2020 hasnt abated, although news coverage of the issue has largely been pushed off the front pages by other events. But the ID theft problem is coming to the fore once again: Countless Americans will soon be receiving notices...

IRS to Make ID Protection PIN Open to All

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service IRS said this week that beginning in 2021 it will allow all taxpayers to apply for an identity protection personal identification number IP PIN, a single-use code designed to block identity thieves from falsely claiming a tax refund in your name. Currently, IP PI...

Indian National Gets 20-Year Jail in United States for Running Scam Call Centers

An Indian national on Monday was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Southern District of Texas for operating and funding India-based call centers that defrauded US victims out of millions of dollars between 2013 and 2016. Hitesh Madhubhai Patel aka Hitesh Hinglaj, who hails from the city of...

Feds Seize $1B in Bitcoin from Silk Road

The feds have seized its largest stash ever of Bitcoin, originating from the notorious Silk Road underground marketplace. The federal coffers are now $1 billion richer. Silk Road was known for the place to go to broker illegal drugs, murder-for-hire, child pornography and malware – such as passwo...

Feds Seize $1 Billion in Stolen Silk Road Bitcoins

A hacker identified only as Individual X had been sitting on a cryptocurrency gold mine for seven years before the IRS came knocking...

IRS COVID-19 Relief Payment Deadlines Anchor Convincing Phish

A credential-phishing email campaign is making the rounds, using the lure of coronavirus tax relief to scam people into giving up their personal information. The data-harvesting cybercriminals are looking to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service IRS deadlines that are approaching for...

Twitter Hacker Arrested

A 17-year-old Florida boy was arrested and charged with last week's Twitter hack. News articles. Boing Boing post. Florida state attorney press release. This is a developing story. Post any additional news in the comments. EDITED TO ADD 8/1: Two others have been charged as well. EDITED TO ADD 8/1...

irs.academy Cross Site Scripting vulnerability OBB-1243204

Following coordinated and responsible vulnerability disclosure guidelines of the ISO 29147 standard, Open Bug Bounty has: &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspa. verified the vulnerability and confirmed its existence; &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspb. notified the website operator about its existence...

Tax Day Fraud: “Identity Theft Subscriptions” in High Demand on the Dark Web

With billions of stolen usernames, passwords, banking information and more circulating on the dark web, identity theft is an evolving and lucrative business, one notorious for exploiting vulnerable times and vulnerable populations. COVID-19 was no exception, opening up a world of new opportunitie...

Tax Scams – Everything you need to know to keep your money and data safe

Tax season has always been a pretty nerve-wracking time for hard-working Americans. But over the years, technology advances have arrived to gradually make the process a bit easier. The bad news is that they can also introduce new cyber risks and even more stress. There are two things that...

Coughing in the face of scammers: security tips for the 2020 tax season

In spite of everything happening in the world right now—the 2020 tax season is about to come to an end, and taxes are due. Americans got a reprieve back in March when the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service IRS announced they were pushing back the federal income tax filing due dat...