IRS Freely Gives Out Employee User Name/Password Info

An anonymous reader writes "The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that its inspectors were able to get IRS employees to improperly disclose their user names and passwords over 61% of the time. 60,000 of the IRS's 100,000 employees and contractors thus are susceptible to computer hackers, putting personal taxpayer information at risk for unauthorized disclosure, theft and fraud. 'Only eight of the 102 employees contacted either the inspector general's office or IRS security offices to validate the legitimacy of the caller ... The IRS agreed with recommendations from the inspector general that it should take steps to make employees more aware of hacker tactics such as posing as an internal employee and to remind people to report such incidents to security officials.'"

Comments

Re:It took this long for this to hit /.?

[FreudianNightmare]

"you'd think that someone who was getting paid $100K+ a year would have a clue about data security"

No, not really. I'd think they'd have a clue about climbing the greasy pole to get their snouts in the trough, but I would only assume they were any good at the job if I'd seen some actual evidence of intellect. Most definitely not a given... After all the most 'senior' American, Mr. George W. Bush, is not exactly a beacon of searing intelligence is he (come on, even if you're Republican, you have to admit he's not terribly bright)? And look how far he managed to get.