HMRC\u2019s intelligent technology intercepted \u00a3100 million worth of fraudulent or incorrect tax repayment claims last year \u2013 but it\u2019s recently been revealed that some online \u201cphishing scams\u201d and hackers were undeterred by the safeguards.<\/p>\n
Cyber criminals have reportedly stolen money by hacking into the systems of HM Revenue & Customs, and hijacking and manipulating self-assessment records.<\/p>\n
Recent claims have revealed that fraudsters have been using so-called \u201cphishing\u201d scams to obtain login details used by taxpayers to access HMRC\u2019s online returns service \u2013 often through disguised spam emails and fraudulent links.<\/p>\n
These scams have deceived people into handing over their personal information directly \u2013 unaware that the website or person requesting them is in no way linked with HMRC.<\/p>\n
Cyber-criminals have then been accessing online tax accounts to alter earnings information, so that HMRC offers them a repayment. The fraudsters have then edited taxpayers\u2019 bank details on returns, so that the money is transferred into newly-created accounts.<\/p>\n
HMRC told The Sunday Times that it was \u201cone of the most phished organisations in the world\u201d, but refused to specify how many successful attacks had taken place, instead warning that online login details to HMRC systems are \u201clike gold dust to fraudsters\u201d \u2013 and advising taxpayers to proceed with great caution.<\/p>\n
The report comes just weeks after HMRC\u2019s January self-assessment deadline, which saw more than nine million taxpayers file self-assessment details. Approximately 17,000 attempts to make fraudulent or incorrect claims were intercepted by HMRC\u2019s data technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HMRC\u2019s intelligent technology intercepted \u00a3100 million worth of fraudulent or incorrect tax repayment claims last year \u2013 but it\u2019s recently been revealed that some online \u201cphishing scams\u201d and hackers were undeterred by the safeguards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}