The Number of IRS Breach Victims has Doubled

Remember the “get transcript” data incident with the IRS last year? At that time, thieves breached the inadequate security of the online system and stole transcript data of what we were told was 100,000 people and then 334,000. If you haven’t heard, that number has increase substantially to over 700,000 as a result of an IRS audit.

Unfortunately, the IRS hasn’t even told everyone who was affected yet, so you may have been and just don’t know yet. Therefore, it’s a wise idea to take some precautions in advance, just in case you get the dreaded “you’ve been hacked” letter from the IRS.

Always take advantage of the free annual credit report offered. Each of the three major credit bureaus will provide one per year to everyone with credit. Of course there will be attempts to upsell you on other services, but the credit report is free. Just make sure to read the fine print and don’t bother putting in a credit card number. If it asks for one, you are purchasing something else and you don’t need to do that to get your report.

If anything on your credit report, payment card accounts, or banking accounts looks suspicious, contact the credit bureau in the first case and the financial institution for the others and clear it up immediately. Since the crooks took tax transcripts, they have a significant amount of information to wreak havoc, including bank account numbers in some cases. Make sure to keep an eye on all charges and credit inquiries.

If you haven’t been offered free credit-monitoring service yet, consider actually paying for it. It won’t prevent someone from obtaining credit with your information, but it will alert you if someone tries.

File your tax returns early. Even though it isn’t going to help you with this particular incident, it will prevent someone from filing with your information before you have a chance to do so, and in case you are on the list of victims that the IRS just hasn’t told yet.

While you cannot control what others do with your information once they have it, you can take precautions to protect it in other cases. By watching your credit reports and payment card charges closely, you will be able to stay on top of it better and react quicker if anything should be amiss.

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