[pchelpers] News: Fake IRS E-Mail Scam Goes Phishing

 Nov. 30, 2005

Users are now being targeted with a new phishing attack posing as a tax 
refund from the Internal Revenue Service.
By Gregg Keizer

A new phishing attack posing as a tax refund from the Internal Revenue 
Service is using a configuration problem on the GovBenefits.gov Web site 
to fool users into thinking they're safe in offering up personal 
information such as Social Security and credit card numbers.

The fraud begins with an e-mail supposedly from the IRS, which claims 
the recipient is owed a tax refund. In the message from 
"taxrefunds@xxxxxxx," a link is embedded to a site where recipients can 
supposedly collect the refund.

So far, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with U.K.-based 
security company Sophos, that's not out of the ordinary. But this 
phishing campaign goes a step farther.

"The link bounces you off a U.S. government site onto one owned by the 
criminals, who are waiting to steal your credit card and Social Security 
number," said Cluley.

The site, GovBenefits.gov, hasn't been hacked, said Cluley, but he 
believes it has had its security configuration incorrectly set so that 
URL requests are easily redirected.

That's providing an opening for the phishing scheme to do its damage. 
"Absolutely, this is devious," Cluley said. "The URL really does take 
people to the real site, but only for a moment before their browsers are 
redirected to the bogus site that poses as an IRS page. The e-mail even 
instructs people to cut and paste the address into their browsers' 
address bars, which will make them even more reassured that it's not a 
phishing attack."

More here:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174403082

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