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IPFS News Link • TAXES: Federal

For Sale On The Dark Web: Your Tax Refund And Social Security Number

• http://www.zerohedge.com, Tyler Durden

Amid the business of tax season, it's not just accountants that are toiling hard to collect their fees. As Bloomberg reports, tax season is hog heaven for cybercriminals. The thought of all that personal data just sitting around, unmolested in tax documents, inspires a torrent of creepy scammer creativity.

The Krebs on Security blog provided a glimpse earlier this year of how our tax data is bought and sold, and what scammers charge other scammers for our data.

Founder Brian Krebs came across something he hadn't seen before on the Dark Web: Bulk sales of W-2 forms.

A scammer had phished a tax preparation firm, Krebs discovered, and was offering for sale 3,600 Florida W-2s in this cyber netherworld which, while connected to the everyday web, requires special software or authorization to access.Bloomberg notes that the fruits of all the successful phishing attempts wind up on the Dark Web.


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