US-CERT Current Activity US Tax Season and Phishing Scams Original release date: April 14, 2009 at 3:13 pm Last revised: April 14, 2009 at 3:13 pm In the past, US-CERT has received reports of an increased number of phishing scams that take advantage of the United States tax season. Due to the upcoming tax deadline, US-CERT would like to remind users to remain cautious when receiving unsolicited email that could be a potential phishing scam. Phishing scams may appear as a tax refund, an offer to assist in filing for a refund, or contain details about fake e-file websites. These messages may appear to be from the IRS and directly ask users for personal information. These messages may also contain a link and instruct the user to follow the link to a website that requests personal information or contains malicious code. US-CERT encourages users to take the following measures to protect themselves from this type of phishing scam: * Do not follow unsolicited web links in email messages. * Maintain up-to-date antivirus software. * Refer to the IRS website related to phishing, email, and bogus website scams for scam samples and reporting information. * Refer to the Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams (pdf) document for more information on avoiding email scams. * Refer to the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks document for more information on social engineering attacks. Relevant Url(s): <http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-014.html> <http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/emailscams_0905.pdf> <http://www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=179820,00.html?portlet=5> ==== This entry is available at http://www.us-cert.gov/current/index.html#us_tax_season_and_phishing Produced 2009 by US-CERT, a government organization. Note: Posted according to copyright permissions of US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team) Purpose of Posting -- To help others keep their genealogy computers healthy.