The US Internal Revenue Services (IRS) will retire the e-Filing PIN system due to the numerous cyber attacks hitting the organisation in late February this year.
The agency has issued a statement on its website stating the plans to retire the e-File PIN system later this year and will expedite the process citing another set of cyber-attacks against the IRS’s online tools.
In February this year, an automated bot attack was discovered by the IRS trying to illicitly generate E-filing PINs for as many as 464,000 users. IRS also confirmed that hackers were able to get the details of 101,000 e-Filing PINs.
For those who don’t know, e-Filing PIN system is used by the IRS for generating a unique PIN that Americans can use on their Form 1040 to file for tax returns. It isn’t mandatory but acts as an alternative to authenticating the document.
As the current system was important but a weak point allowing hackers to request fraudulent tax returns, the agency has decided to get rid of it altogether.
IRS didn’t provide any details about the latest attacks but were able to catch them via new cyber-security solutions put in place this winter.
Earlier too the agency has reported data thefts but the number grew significantly in a nine-month investigation carried out since May of last year.
The IRS statement also specified the relaunch of Get Transcript application with bolstered security features.