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| Phishing emails have posed as federal tax
refunds. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have welcomed
the news that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published
information for American taxpayers about how they can report
suspicious emails that claim to come from the organization.
Following a spate of email phishing campaigns which have posed
as federal tax refunds (but have actually been designed by hackers
to steal confidential information from individuals), the IRS has
published advice on its
website.
Users who receive a suspected phishing email posing as an IRS
communication should send it to phishing@irs.gov,
including the full email headers if possible.
"These phishing emails typically point you to a bogus website
which looks just like the real IRS website, but is really designed
to steal information from you," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Taxpayers and other online
surfers need to be very careful about which emails they trust and
what websites they visit or they could end up with a large hole in
their finances."
Some phishing emails invite taxpayers to visit
a bogus website to collect a non-existent refund.
In February, Sophos revealed in a
survey that 58% of people receive a phishing email every
day.
Sophos recommends that computer users protect themselves with a
consolidated solution which can defend
against the threats of spam, spyware and viruses.
Organizations concerned about being fraudulently represented in
phishing campaigns can sign up to the Sophos early warning system,
Sophos PhishAlert.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.