(Podcast) California Employment News: Best Practices for Employers to Start The New Year (Archive)
California Employment News: Best Practices for Employers to Start The New Year (Archive)
Day 26 | Operationalizing compliance through payroll
It is every employer’s worst nightmare: an unsuspecting employee receives an email in the early morning from an individual claiming to be his supervisor. The email asks him to follow up on an urgent work assignment that needs...more
Last week was National Consumer Protection Week. In celebration of that, this post is devoted to protection from tax identity theft. ...more
As tax season winds on, the W-2 form scam has emerged as one of the most dangerous and common phishing email schemes during this time of year....more
Payroll Threats and Protecting Personal Information - In case you have not been checking the FBI warnings (I realize those are unusual words for a benefits person), you and your employees should know of one of such...more
There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and the knowledge that Ben Franklin’s famous adage will be co-opted. A twenty-first century version of it may be that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except...more
In a recent Public Service Announcement dated February 21, 2018 entitled “Increase in W-2 Phishing Campaigns,” the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) issued another alert about an increase in phishing campaigns since the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employers have been scammed into sending sensitive W-2 information to malicious third parties. This article outlines the key steps California employers must immediately take if subject to this unfortunate...more
Tax returns and W-2s are information rich documents. Among other things they contain the name and Social Security Number of an employee, as well as information concerning their salary and address, and personal behavior and...more
Employers beware: Companies are experiencing a wave of phishing scams that target employee paychecks. Here is the scenario: An employee receives from a company email account e-mail that mimics a familiar and trusted company...more
Nearly a year ago, in February 2017, the IRS issued a warning regarding phishing attacks targeting a broad range of companies. The scam involves a hacker impersonating an employee of a company, usually the CEO, and sending an...more
According to the IRS, the IRS saw the number of businesses, public schools, universities, tribal governments and nonprofits victimized by W-2 scams increase to 200 in 2017 from 50 in 2016. Those 200 victims translated into...more
As employers prepare to send employees their W-2s for last year by the end of the month, cybercriminals are preparing phishing emails under the guise of company executives requesting personal information on employees. The IRS...more
Last February, the IRS issued a warning to all employers regarding the resurgence of a W-2 based cyber scam. The scam, which targets businesses during tax season, was also “spreading to other sectors, including school...more
The term “social engineering” used to conjure up images of social scientists with Ph.D’s brainstorming ways to improve race relations or provide lower income groups with greater access to education and employment...more
A dangerous email scam currently is circulating nationwide and targeting employers, including tax exempt entities, universities and schools, government and private-sector businesses. The scammer poses as an internal executive...more
HR and payroll professionals nationwide have been, and will continue to be, targeted with e-mails apparently sent by a senior executive but actually sent by scammers who ask for a prompt reply with the 2016 W-2s for all of...more
W-2 phishing schemes continue to be a problem for companies in every industry. Last week, American Senior Communities based in Indiana announced that one of its employees was scammed through a phishing email and thereafter...more
It starts with an e-mail from upper management asking for employee data or payroll records. Wanting to demonstrate that he’s diligent and responsive, a well-meaning HR or payroll person promptly sends off the requested...more
Emails, lots and lots of emails, filling our inboxes. Even with the best security and filters, it seems that hackers are simply building better mousetraps. The bigger problem, however, is the trusting nature of individuals...more
We continue to see all industries hit with W2 phishing scams, including the health care industry. Citizens Memorial Hospital, located in Bolivar, Missouri, was hit with the scam when one of its employees believed that an...more
The Internal Revenue Service and other agencies recently issued an urgent reminder Alert warning of a sophisticated scam to obtain confidential information and in some cases, fraudulent cash wire transfer payments. Scammers...more
Tax-related identity theft is nothing new, but tax season 2016 took tax schemes to a new level. Last year, our cyber experts advised a large cluster of clients (public and private companies) over a period of only two...more
The IRS recently provided an update on a growing scam targeting employers. The scam generally operates as follows: criminals devise methods to create emails that appear as though the message has been sent from an...more
Tax returns and W-2s are information rich documents that contain the name and Social Security Number of an employee, as well as information concerning their salary and address, and personal behavior and characteristics (e.g.,...more
We always see a surge in W2 email phishing schemes this time of year, as it is tax time, and many individuals are filing their tax returns in order to get a quick refund. So are criminals and cyber-hackers. ...more