Thousands of income taxpayers were flummoxed by ‘fake’ emails received from ‘phishers’ and ‘hackers’ on Monday seeking their personal and financial details ahead of refunds payment.
Fake mails also lead the taxpayers to links that are mirror images of the income tax (I-T) department’s website and seek sensitive information including bank accounts details, among other financial details. The mails in circulation are regarded by a huge section of I-Tax department as nothing but ‘spam mail’. But, others do see the vulnerability of the I-T department’s large database and its website that links crores of taxpayers, both individual and companies.
Gulshan Rai, director general, CERT-IN at the department of information technology, told Financial Chronicle, “Online security has been a huge concern for the industry. With the growth of websites, emails phishing and hacking has increased to a great extent. We do see a lot of spam emails being circulated for financial gains. We need to educate individuals on online security.”
These emails, which have their origin from a web address not related the I-T department, have led to confusion and anxiety on the security of financial data uploaded by individuals and companies.
But the I-T department has clarified that links with fake mails under circulation only reflect the mirror image of the I-T department’s website. The I-T department has maintained that neither the website nor its intra-net data has been either hacked or compromised. The I-T department has also said that it does not send emails on refunds and does not seek any information regarding credit cards of taxpayers. “To create mirror image of a website, there is no need to hack it. The I-T website has not been hacked. We have taken appropriate steps to prevent such incidents,” said Shishir Jha, IT commissioner and spokesperson, central board of direct taxes.
In October, the I-T department received several complaints from taxpayers about phishing. An additional commissioner of the I-T department, who did not wish to be identified, confirmed that the site was hacked in October 2009. Following the incident, the I-T department in a news release, said, “Information has been received from several quarters that people are receiving electronic mail informing them of their income-tax refunds and seeking their credit card details. The email is sent from the following or similar mailing addresses — lhxbkw@ accounts.net or cvhfvs@ accounts.net.”
The department cautioned taxpayers against giving out information on credit cards and accounts details online. Mails received by taxpayers on Monday also originated from similar addresses. Efforts made by FC to contact the director general (systems) at the I-Tax department were unsuccessful. Lakshmi Prasad, in-charge of systems at I-T department was not available for comment.
SOURCE: mydigitalfc