Americans at Risk of Identity Theft as They File their Tax Returns (betanews.com)

Ian Barker, writing for BetaNews: As we move into the tax return season a new study reveals that attitudes to identity theft and a pattern of poor practices are leaving much of the public vulnerable. Data security and ID theft protection company CyberScout has carried out its second annual Tax Season Risk Report and finds 58 percent of Americans are not worried about tax fraud in spite of federal reports of 787,000 confirmed identity theft returns in 2016, totaling more than $4 billion in potential fraud. Among other findings are that only 35 percent of taxpayers demand that their preparers use two-factor authentication to protect their clients' personal information. Less than a fifth (18 percent) use an encrypted USB drive to save important documents like tax worksheets, W-2s, 1099s or 1040s. And another 38 percent either store tax documents on their computer's hard drive or in the cloud, approaches that are susceptible to a variety of hacks.

Comments

scare mongering getting old

[Anonymous Coward]

All these individual security tactics are NOT where the problem lies. You can encrypt your drives, use TFA, and shred all the paper. But thieves steal the enitire DB at Intuit or irs.gov. American attitudes are properly aligned. We don't control the databases where most theft occurs.

Re:scare mongering getting old

[ShanghaiBill]

All these individual security tactics are NOT where the problem lies. ... But thieves steal the enitire DB at Intuit or irs.gov.

You are correct that "individual security" is not the problem, but DBs are not the problem either. The real problem is the idiotic notion that SSNs can be both widely known and secret. I am required to provide my SSN to my employer, my bank, my doctor, my state government, etc. Yet mere knowledge of that number is supposed to authenticate my identity? That makes no sense.

Re:I suspect

[ShanghaiBill]

they can't hack the paper forms I mail in.

They can as soon as the forms are scanned, and your info is inserted into the same DB as everyone else.

Re:Thankful to the Donald we don't have to file

[Jason Levine]

Not paying your taxes makes you smart!*

* Only applies to billionaires. Attempts to apply this to someone in the middle class may result in jail time.