Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Turns out, the Hillary Clinton campaign isn’t the only team this year that understated the magnitude of a data security breach affecting Americans nationwide.
On Monday, the IRS revealed that a criminal syndicate’s massive theft of American taxpayer data was much worse than originally thought. In May, the government agency said criminals used a tool on the IRS website to steal the tax forms of 104,000 people. It has revised that number up to 330,000.
The tax-collection agency said it realized the total number of victims was twice as high after it conducted “an extensive review covering the 2015 filing season.”
The IRS is now sending letters to those taxpayers to warn them about potential identity theft, offer free credit protection and give them an extra PIN to protect future tax filings.
…. Tax forms contain much more sensitive information, including salary, family information, and property and investment values. With this additional stolen information, criminals can claim bogus tax refunds — or open credit lines in your name.
The criminals used a tool provided by the IRS called “Get Transcript,” which allows citizens to access past tax returns after providing personal information like social security numbers and birthdays. The hackers used previously acquired (aka. stolen) personal data to enter the digital tool right through the front door, no hacking required.
It’s an embarrassing government failure to protect Americans from bad guys breaking into the most basic of security hurdles- the login page.
Between the IRS, the NSA, Common Core, and now ObamaCare, the government continues to collect more and more of our personal data. Beyond the debate over whether or not the government has the authority to collect this personal information in the first place (the answer is no), are they even competent enough to know what to do with it?
(Spoiler alert: that answer is also NO.)
