On March 1, 2016, the IRS issued an alert to HR professionals warning that criminals are targeting HR professionals in order to steal employee data. The fake email appears to come from a company executive requesting employee payroll data.
The IRS reports that the scam has several variations, all aimed at getting crucial personal information about employees. The scams include:
- Kindly send me the individual 2015 W-2 (PDF) and earnings summary of all W-2 of our company staff for a quick review.
- Can you send me the updated list of employees with full details (Name, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Home Address, Salary).
- I want you to send me the list of W-2 copy of employees wage and tax statement for 2015, I need them in PDF file type, you can send it as an attachment. Kindly prepare the lists and email them to me asap.
Note how this cyber attack does not use malware. It relies exclusively on tricking people. Tricking people with clever emails is the problem we address at Iconix. Learn more about SP Guard.