While nothing is impossible to breach you’d think that it would be really really hard to gain access to information like the one from the IRS. At least that’s what I thought – until I saw their press release today. According to the statement cybercriminals managed to illegally gain access to data from about 100,000 accounts by using the IRS’ very own “Get Transcript” app. Accessed data include things like addresses, birthdates, Social Security information, and the tax filing statuses.

Now don’t misunderstand the situation: The IRS has not been hacked. Well. Not in the usual sense of the word anyway. “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”, explains the IRS statement. What does that mean? The criminals collected a lot of data and information on a lot of unlucky people – be it through phishing of by buying data from shady online sources – and used them to actually access taxpayers past tax records.

According to the information supplied the attackers tried to access 200,000 accounts between February and mid-May which leaves them with a success rate of 50%.

Once the IRS identified the questionable attempts to gain access to its data it decided to shut down the “Get Transcript” app temporarily. The whole affair is now also under investigation of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and the IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit.

The IRS closes the statement with the following: “The IRS will be working aggressively to protect affected taxpayers and strengthen our protocols even further going forward.”

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