​​The IRS was recently notified by several tax professional software companies of phishing emails targeted at tax preparers.  The phishing emails appear to be legitimate emails from the tax software company instructing the recipient to download updates to the tax software. 

If recipients of the email click on the link to install the software update, they are directed to a website that prompts them to download a file named “SOFTWARECOMPANYUPDATE.exe”, where “SOFTWARECOMPANY” is the name of the tax software company the email recipient is using.

If the .exe file is downloaded and installed, it appears as though system files are immediately updated to several IP addresses, then a Key Logger continues to run in the background.  The IRS is encouraging tax software companies and tax preparers to be on the alert for this scheme and derivatives of it.

August 11, 2016

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