CBS: IRS Data Breach Affecting Nearly 3 Times More People than Initially Estimated

‘IRS says it is going to be mailing letters in the next few days to about 220,000 taxpayers who were affected’

UNKNOWN FEMALE: “Capitol Hill lawmakers this morning are blasting the IRS. The agency is alerting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers that they are hacking victims. Jan Crawford is at the IRS headquarters where the size of a data breach is exploding. Jan, good morning.”

CRAWFORD: “Good morning. Officials at the IRS now say that that breach announced back in May affected nearly three times as many people as they had originally thought. Now, hackers used stolen social security numbers and other personal information to get the past tax returns of 334,000 taxpayers, that’s up from 114,000 that they first thought. The IRS believes that the thieves targeted its website to get detailed information on the victims to help them claim fraudulent tax returns next year. The IRS says it is going to be mailing letters in the next few days to about 220,000 taxpayers who were affected. It’s going to be offering free credit monitoring, along with the option for victims to enroll in a program where they are given a secure pin that they must use to file their taxes the next year. When this breach was originally announced back in May, officials said that they thought the fees were part of some sophisticated criminal operations that was coming out of Russia.”

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