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IRS Hunting For Its Phishers
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-04-05
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
In response to the news that criminals have been sending phishing emails disguised as communications from the IRS, the tax agency has provided instructions on how to report these messages.
 | | Hunting For Phishers |  |
The Internal Revenue Service receives a great deal of attention each April, as millions of Americans file their annual tax returns. Many of them anticipate a refund of what they have paid to the government over the year, and a scam aimed at stealing their personal information in the form of phishing emails has targeted those people.
On a new web page, the IRS discussed its initiative to collect fake emails from recipients. One important point to consider: the IRS said it never initiates taxpayer communications through email.
If one receives a suspicious message, it can be forwarded with its headers to phishing@irs.gov and the agency will investigate it. The IRS provides instructions on forwarding messages from different email programs so the headers will be included with the email.
However, the person who wrote the copy for the IRS page has managed to confuse a certain messaging device for the English leather goods maker. This is from the IRS phishing web page at press time:
In Mulberry
You can forward a message without double clicking to open it in a new window. Highlight the e-mail in the message list of your inbox and follow the directions for your particular mail client...
While Mulberry does indeed offer an excellent selection of finely made organizers in its Spring/Summer 2006 product line, none are listed with built-in wireless email capabilities. We anticipate the IRS will change Mulberry to read Blackberry soon, and suggest the copywriter's Internet shopping be curtailed while he or she is at work.
(We also noticed the chocolate Darwin Mini Ruled Notebook is out of stock. We'll have to stick with our Moleskines until the reorder arrives, darn the luck.)
The Sophos security company commented on its site that its February survey revealed 58 percent of users receive a phishing email each day. One of its consultants remarked on the IRS phishing problem:
"These phishing emails typically point you to a bogus website which looks just like the real IRS website, but is really designed to steal information from you," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Taxpayers and other online surfers need to be very careful about which emails they trust and what websites they visit or they could end up with a large hole in their finances."
Most email users see these emails rendered in HTML, where the authentic graphics, message, and realistic link hide the true thievery away. Viewing these messages by their source code in plaintext reveals how the link that appears to go to a legitimate site actually takes the user to a completely different domain.
The battle against phishing scams has been heating up for some time. Makers of Internet browsers and add-ons have been implementing ways to make it apparent when a user may have been redirected to a bogus web site.
Also, the CastleCops "Fried Phish" program we reported on recently allows any user to submit a scam email to the program, where volunteers with the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination project will work toward getting the fake site shutdown.
That project's success rate has increased from the 40-50 percent we reported. CastleCops president Paul Laudanski emailed to let us know their work was shutting down sites at about a 67 percent clip.
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Tag: IRS
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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