WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS announced today that criminals used taxpayer-specific data acquired from non-IRS sources to gain unauthorized access to information on approximately 100,000 tax accounts through IRS’ “Get Transcript” application. This data included Social Security information, date of birth and street address.
These third parties gained sufficient information from an outside source before trying to access the IRS site, which allowed them to clear a multi-step authentication process, including several personal verification questions that typically are only known by the taxpayer. The matter is under review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration as well as the IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit, and the “Get Transcript” application has been shut down temporarily. The IRS will provide free credit monitoring services for the approximately 100,000 taxpayers whose accounts were accessed. In total, the IRS has identified 200,000 total attempts to access data and will be notifying all of these taxpayers about the incident.
The IRS said it takes the security of taxpayer data extremely seriously, and is “working aggressively to protect affected taxpayers and continue to strengthen our protocols.”
The IRS also announced today it will be notifying taxpayers of the data breach.
The IRS temporarily shut down the Get Transcript application last week after an initial assessment identified questionable attempts were detected on the system in mid-May. The online application will remain disabled until the IRS makes modifications and further strengthens security for it.
The matter is under continuing review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and IRS offices, including Criminal Investigation.
The IRS noted this issue does not involve its main computer system that handles tax filing submission; it said that system remains secure.
In addition to disabling the Get Transcript application, the IRS has taken a number of immediate steps to protect taxpayers, including sending a letter to all of the approximately 200,000 taxpayers whose accounts had attempted unauthorized accesses and offering free credit monitoring for the approximately 100,000 taxpayers whose Get Transcript accounts were accessed.
