For the past several years, thousands of businesses have been hit with phishing scams during tax season. Through these social engineering scams, hackers obtain employee Forms W-2 for filing fraudulent tax returns seeking...more
For several years now, we’ve been alerting employers about the dangers of phishing scams that attempt to obtain private and personal information from employers... Many of these scams rear their ugly head around tax season,...more
With the April 17 tax deadline fast approaching, businesses need to remain vigilant for employee reports (or more likely questions) about fraudulent tax returns being filed in their names. Multiple employee reports of...more
It is tax season once again, and with it comes an increased threat of phishing scams targeting human resources and payroll personnel. In 2016, the IRS alerted employers to a then-emerging email phishing scheme in which...more
Brushing aside apparent flaws in a proposed class definition, a federal court in Kentucky declined to dismiss class allegations against North Carolina-based pharmacy services provider Pharm-Save Inc. (Pharm-Save) stemming...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
While it may be better known as “Cyber Monday”, today also marks the start of the second annual National Tax Security Awareness Week (November 27 to December 1). The Internal Revenue Service, state tax agencies and the tax...more
Hardly a week goes by without another announcement of a high-profile data security breach. The list of data breaches impacting high-profile employers and their employees just in 2017 is long...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
Our Data Privacy and Security team is currently assisting multiple clients in responding to nearly identical fraudulent requests for IRS Form W-2 information. Significantly, these clients are in a number of industries and are...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
As if tax season was not bad enough, the U.S. Internal Revenue Services ("IRS") recently issued an urgent alert warning that cybercriminal phishing scams are utilizing a new, more dangerously effective method for large-scale...more
The Internal Revenue Service, state tax agencies and the tax industry issued an urgent alert today to all employers that the Form W-2 email phishing scam has evolved beyond the corporate world and is spreading to other...more
It’s that taxing time of the year. Employees have received W-2 forms and the tax filing season has begun in earnest. And, as night follows day, last year’s W-2 spear-phishing scam has returned. The IRS and state tax...more
Last year we saw an unprecedented number of companies of all sizes fall victim to a W-2 spear phishing scam. The scam usually began with a “spoofing” email that appeared to have been sent by a company’s CEO or CFO to one or...more
Tax season brings many headaches, but none as miserable as sophisticated scammer efforts to steal employee W-2 information. Using social engineering and modest technological tools, a “spear phishing” attack seeks to trick...more