The Internal Revenue Services has revealed that a May IRS cyberattack was much larger than previously expected, possibly revealing three times as many taxpayers’ personal information.
In May, the IRS reported that over a four month period the information for roughly 114,000 U.S. taxpayers had been accessed illegally by hackers, “with another 111,000 unsuccessful attempts made.” New information indicates that there have been an additional 220,000 incidents where information was illegally accessed and “another 170,000 suspected failed attempts by third parties to gain access to taxpayer data.”
The IRS believes that the hackers stole the information with the intention of filing false claims in the 2016 filing season. The agency will “begin mailing letters in the next few days to the taxpayers whose accounts may have been accessed, offering them free credit monitoring and a new personal identification number to verify the authenticity of next year’s tax returns.”
Additionally, The Hill has recently reported that President Obama has requested a 72% cybersecurity funding, for a total of $242 million.