Phishing bait: Notice from the IRS indicating the recipient is being penalized $10,000 for failure to file an income tax return.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, February 2012]
To Whom it May Concern,
Please be informed, that you need to pay a penalty because you did not file income tax return before
Please pay attention, that IRS [Section 6038(b)(1)] rates a monetary penalty to the amount of $10,000 for each
You will be released from the penalty on condition that the company shows that the failure to file on time was based on ample grounds.
Please use the link below to enter our official site and obtain more information.
Yours faithfully,
Internal Revenue Service United States
Department of the Treasury
Origins: Notices purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) make good phishing bait for a number of reasons:
- Notices from institutions of the federal government (especially an agency with the ominous reputation of the IRS) grab people's attention.
- Unlike other phishing schemes that emulate mailings from various private financial institutions (e.g., Bank of America) and are therefore easily recognized as phony by many recipients (because they do no business with those companies), a forged IRS notice has the potential to take in a much larger pool of victims, as most adult
U.S. residents have dealings with that agency. - Many people find the federal income tax filing process complicated and confusing, so the idea that a return may have gone astray and not made it to its proper destination in time seems plausible.
A February 2012 mass phish
The IRS never sends out unsolicited
The IRS says about such
Do not open any attachments to questionable
The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through
Last updated: 9 February 2012