In the last month alone, tax related scams have increased by 50%, imagine, which translates to approximately 142,000 attempted scams.
The problem is that scammers are updating and taking advantage of advances in technology making it increasingly difficult for us to detect which messages are from the IRS and which are not, but I have some recommendations to protect you.
The problem is to distinguish, for example, cards that look identical when only one of them is real.
“There is no difference, someone like me, who is an expert, even sometimes I cannot identify that it is something that is not correct,” said Martín López, an expert in cybersecurity.
Lopez works for one of many companies that offers free tools to help consumers detect and block cyber scams, and says she’s seen a growth in such text messages and email.
“We detected and blocked 139,000 scam-related links, including 5,000 scam-related and 5,000 tax-related. A 248% increase in tax scams…that’s a lot!
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The problem is that if you don’t realize this is a scam and click on the links in these letters that appear to be from the IRS, you will end up on other fake pages, where you could give everything to the crooks they need to steal your money.
“(For example, social security number, place of residence, phone, and date of birth,” he said.
The solution, Lopez said, is to first take a moment and not open any links.
“Be careful and curious, when the messages, the calls come in, they confirm it’s someone from the government or the IRS,” López said.
“Be careful and curious when you receive messages, calls… Confirm that they are from someone who is from the government or the IRS,” he added.
In the case of the IRS, go directly to the irs.gov page and only do the steps there, open your own secure account by following the instructions. They will only ask you for an email and password to get started. Another recommendation to avoid falling into the trap of cyber scams? Download an antivirus filter, such as ‘Trend Micro’, which is free, and learn more about this type of protection.
“Knowing what security tools are there, ‘Trend Micro’ is not the only one, there are many more, I recommend you look at all of those that are there,” López said.
You will therefore have one more barrier to block fraudulent messages.
And remember that it is very important, if you fall for any of these scams, to report it to the authorities, because only then can it be investigated and corrected. ‘a record kept, to alert others and help prevent it from happening again.