Category Archives: Internal Revenue Service

Senators Urge FTC to Probe ID.me Over Selfie Data

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Some of more tech-savvy Democrats in the U.S. Senate are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate identity-proofing company ID.me for “deceptive statements” the company and its founder allegedly made over how they handle facial recognition data collected on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service, which until recently required anyone seeking a new IRS account online to provide a live video selfie to ID.me. Continue reading Senators Urge FTC to Probe ID.me Over Selfie Data→

Emotet’s tax-season phishing is back with new tricks

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Researchers at Cofense say the operators behind the Emotet botnet “have upped their game” for 2022’s tax season.

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IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access

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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 agency’s website. The reversal comes as privacy experts and lawmakers have been pushing the IRS and other federal agencies to find less intrusive methods for validating one’s identity with the U.S. government online. Continue reading IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access→

Zeal banks $13M to offer employers a ‘build your own’ payroll product infrastructure

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Enterprises use Zeal to pay large volumes of workers and keep payment data on their own native systems. Continue reading Zeal banks $13M to offer employers a ‘build your own’ payroll product infrastructure→

US arrests alleged ‘Bitcoin Fog’ boss, who is accused of laundering millions

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U.S. federal agents on Tuesday arrested the alleged operator of Bitcoin Fog, a cryptocurrency-obfuscation service that the dark web’s most notorious marketplaces have reportedly used to move tens of millions of dollars. Roman Sterlingov, a Russian-Swedish national, was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with money laundering for his alleged role as Bitcoin Fog’s mastermind, according to court documents. Created in 2011, Bitcoin Fog bills itself as a means of further anonymizing cryptocurrency transactions by separating transmitted bitcoin from a particular bitcoin address. Some $336 million in transactions were routed through Bitcoin Fog over a decade, according to a criminal complaint against Sterlingov filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. That included tens of millions of dollars laundered for dark web forums like AlphaBay and Silk Road, which were known for trafficking in drugs and hacking tools, as well as other illicit products, before being shut […]

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IRS to Make ID Protection PIN Open to All

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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 PINs are issued only to those who fill out an ID theft affidavit, or to taxpayers who’ve experienced tax refund fraud in previous years. Continue reading IRS to Make ID Protection PIN Open to All→

New IRS Site Could Make it Easy for Thieves to Intercept Some Stimulus Payments

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The U.S. federal government is now in the process of sending Economic Impact Payments by direct deposit to millions of Americans. Most who are eligible for payments can expect to have funds direct-deposited into the same bank accounts listed on previous years’ tax filings sometime next week. Today, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stood up a site to collect bank account information from the many Americans who don’t usually file a tax return. The question is, will those non-filers have a chance to claim their payments before fraudsters do? Continue reading New IRS Site Could Make it Easy for Thieves to Intercept Some Stimulus Payments→

Watch out for the new wave of COVID-19 scams, warns IRS

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If somebody promises to get your economic impact payment fast, back away: it’s just one flavor of COVID-19 scam the tax agency is seeing. Continue reading Watch out for the new wave of COVID-19 scams, warns IRS→

U.S. arrests 281 people worldwide accused of involvement in BEC scams

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The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the arrests of 281 people and the seizure of nearly $3.7 million in connection with a four-month investigation into business email compromise scams. Prosecutors on Tuesday detailed the results of an elaborate interagency probe into BEC scams, which occur when thieves impersonate a trusted co-worker, lover or other associate in order to convince a victim to send them money or personal information. Among the accused are a group of alleged scammers who defrauded a community college out of $5 million from Illinois, two men in Texas who prosecutors say used 12 fictitious identities to steal and launder more than $3 million, and a Florida crime ring that relied on 18 money mules to launder $950,000. Seventy-four people were taken into custody in the U.S, while there were also 167 arrests in Nigeria, 18 in Turkey, 15 in Ghana, and more in France, Italy, the […]

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