With tax season now well underway, CEO Fraud and W-2 Phishing have dominated news headlines throughout the country. What most people don’t yet realize, however, is most cybercriminals have now combined these hack attacks for even greater destruction. This combined attack first relies on breaching a victim’s network with W-2 Phishing. Then, the cybercriminal follows up with an “executive” email to the payroll requesting for a wire transfer to a specified bank account.
W-2 email Phished scam
According to John Koskinen, Commissioner of the IRS, “this is one of the most dangerous email phishing scams we’ve seen in a long time. Although not tax related, the wire transfer scam is being coupled with the W-2 email scam, and some companies have lost both employees’ W-2s and thousands of dollars.”
To prevent this destructive combination from reaching your company, sign up below for a free security checkup. Please also forward any W-2 phishing scams to phishing@irs.gov with “W2 Scam” as the subject line.
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