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FEATURESaturday 27 February 2016

Watch out for phishy emails during tax season

BREE FOWLER In this Aug. 21, 2014, file photo, shows health care tax forms 8962, 1095-A, and 8965, in Washington. It’s tax time, so you’d better
AP Technology Writer think twice before clicking on that link in your email inbox. What may look like a legitimate communication from your bank, human
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s tax resources department or email provider may actually be part of a scheme designed to steal the confidential information stored in
time, so you’d better think your computer, or to gain access to the network it’s attached to.
twice before clicking on
that link in your email inbox. Associated Press.
What may look like a legiti-
mate communication from hack. order to create highly cus- of phishing, they’re not as go a long way toward pre-
your bank, human resourc- Phishing also spikes around tomized emails that look prevalent anymore. Many venting a data breach,
es department or email Christmas, with attacks in much more legitimate and overseas hackers are no even if a link in a phishing
provider may actually be the form of fake delivery are much more likely to be longer using clunky trans- email gets accidentally
part of a scheme designed notifications. Thieves also clicked on. lation websites, because clicked on.
to steal the confidential often tie phishing emails to The rise of social media there are fluent English Using different passwords
information stored in your major sporting events, or has made this a lot easier. speakers who specialize in for different accounts, two-
computer, or to gain ac- natural disasters like over- Thanks to Facebook and translating phishing emails factor authentication and
cess to the network it’s at- seas earthquakes, says Twitter, details including a for a fee, Samani says. changing passwords fre-
tached to. Raj Samani, chief technol- person’s place of employ- Meanwhile, it’s become quently all can be a big
Experts warn that tax sea- ogy officer for Europe, the ment, where they bank, easier to shorten the Web help. In addition, compa-
son is a prime time for this Middle East and Africa at like to shop and the names links that direct a people to nies should test their em-
brand of fraud known as Intel Security. and ages of their children fake websites, he says. ployees by periodically
“phishing,” with hackers “They’re very much up with are just a few clicks away. Narang adds that people sending out fake phishing
out to steal your informa- the latest news and infor- ___ should be wary of emails emails to see who falls for
tion in hopes of using it to mation,” Samani says. “If WHAT OTHER RED FLAGS purported to be from them, Narang says.
file a false tax return. they can spend a little more SHOULD I BE ON THE LOOK- banks, or other companies And companies need to
Phishing emails remain one time and get a 0.1 percent OUT FOR? they do business with, but make sure their security
of the top causes of data increase in click-throughs, didn’t opt into emails from. keys are up to date, along
breaches. While people then their campaign be- In an effort to get more He also notes that banks with their anti-spam filters,
are more aware of their comes hugely more profit- people to click on a link be- generally don’t include so past bad senders don’t
danger than ever before, able and successful.” fore thinking about the pos- Web links in emails. keep getting through, Sa-
the lures continue to evolve ___ sible consequences, many Those links will likely take a mani says.
and increase in sophistica- WHAT’S THE DIFERENCE phishing emails will give an person to a fake website “I think common sense
tion, making it tough for the BETWEEN PHISHING AND impression of scarcity, or where they will be asked to goes a considerable long
average person to discern SPEAR FISHING? include some kind of time login and those credentials way,” Samani says.
which emails are legitimate Narang likens phishing to a limit. will ultimately be stolen, he He adds that with any
and which ones aren’t. person casually throwing a For example, an email says. email communications,
Here are a few answers to rod in a lake and waiting made to appear to be And attacks don’t just it’s always better to just go
common questions about for a bite. Phishing emails from a person’s bank or come in the form of email. straight to the main web-
phishing: don’t contain a lot of spe- email provider may state They can come as text site of the entity it purports
___ cifics, but are quick and that if that person doesn’t messages too, with those to be from, just to be on the
WHY IS IT SO BAD THIS TIME easy to send out in mass click on the enclosed link links often containing virus- safe side.
OF YEAR? quantities. within 24 hours, they will es, Samani says. “I can’t remember the last
Phishing peaks during tax “Spear phishing” is much be locked out of their ac- ___ time I clicked on a link in an
season, partially because more targeted and person- count. IS THERE ANY WAY TO PRE- email,” Samani says. “I just
it’s a time of year that many alized. The people behind And while poor English and VENT A PHISHING-RELATED don’t do it.”q
people are accustomed to those attacks spend time long, complex web links HACKING?
entering their most person- researching their targets in were previously sure signs Basic cyberhygiene can
al information — such as
their Social Security number
or bank account informa-
tion — on websites, Satnam
Narang, senior security-re-
sponse manager for secu-
rity software maker Syman-
tec, says.
Hackers can use that infor-
mation to file false tax re-
turns and steal a refund
This year is no exception.
Earlier this month, the IRS
said that it stopped an at-
tack on the e-filing portion
of its website. Hackers tried
to use a combination of
malware and 464,000 So-
cial Security numbers that
had been stolen elsewhere
to generate PIN numbers
that could be used to file
fraudulent returns.
No taxpayer data was sto-
len from the IRS computer
systems as a result of the