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New estimates have been released by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after hackers have managed to steal, clearing security screens requirement, sensitive personal information of American taxpayers in thousands.
Earlier the total number of potential victims was estimated to be 334,000, but in the new release IRS says it is about 610,000.
In May this year the IRS reported tax return information of about 225,000 households were compromised. The hackers have used stolen Social Security details from elsewhere and have gained access of the 2015 filing season in which 114,000 units have been of successful attempts and another 111,000 units have been of unsuccessful attempts.
IRS has also said they are working on strengthening the security further by additionally enhancing the identity authentication protocols as the security of taxpayer data is of serious concern to them.
IRS uses ‘Get Transcript’ service to give online access to the past tax return, and the same was also used by the cybercriminals at entry point to hack and steal the data.
Meanwhile, the potential victims are being notified by officials and they are also being offered free credit-monitoring services. They have been assigned special ID number too to use in filing of tax returns henceforth.
According to the IRS, hackers first targeted to steal the data in February this year and it is believed to be the work of a sophisticated criminal operation which is based in Russia.
The IRS had shut down the ‘Get Transcript’ Web site in May after the hack and it is still in the same condition.
In each filing season the downloading total of past tax returns transcripts count to about 23 million.
In 2013 $5.8 billion has been paid in fraudulent refunds, estimates IRS. Commissioner John Koskinen said staying ahead of the cyber thieves is hard for them.