It’s that time of the year when not only do you have to be worried about filing your federal taxes in the U.S., you must also be on the lookout for a whole manner of tax-related scams.
These are something that pop up every year through email, texts, phone calls and even physical mail — phony promises to get your tax return back faster, file your taxes “easy and free” or maximizing your possible return. Usually, the bad actors behind these are either looking to steal your money or personal information.
One scam from last year’s tax season could have cost consumers up to $5,000 in penalties for trying to claim a fraudulent tax credit.
And it turns out this isn’t just a problem in the U.S., either. We published new research last week into a trojan malware that’s been infecting victims in Mexico with tax-related spam emails and other social engineering tactics.
Many countries across the world all have tax filing deadlines around the same time — Japan’s is just around the corner on March 15, in the U.S. it’s April 15, and several countries (Brazil, Canada, Chile, etc.) all share an April 30 filing deadline. So, adversaries all over the globe are going to be leveraging tax-related topics in their spam emails and social engineering campaigns in the coming weeks, trying to steal money, infect devices with malware, or steal critical personal information.
It’s important to remember that this isn’t “peak spam season” or anything, thou ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
