Have you filed your taxes yet? The clock is ticking.
Typically, Tax Day is April 15. However, this year, special circumstances are giving you a couple extra days to file. Tax Day falls on Tuesday, April 17.
We need to be extra careful this tax season. That’s because popular tax software providers could be putting you at risk of identity theft and other scams.
Is your tax preparation company putting you at risk?
We’re always warning you of the latest phishing scams making the rounds. It’s when scammers send fraudulent emails that include malicious links trying to trick victims into clicking on them.
According to phishing.org, there are over 100 billion spam emails sent every day. Yikes! More than 85 percent of all organizations have been targeted by phishing attacks and damages exceed $1 billion.
Now, security researchers at Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) are claiming that certain popular tax software providers don’t have enough email protections to secure communications with customers.
They include:
- H&R Block
- TurboTax
- FreeTaxUSA
- TaxAct
What’s happening is, these companies are not using the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) email-validation system. It’s designed to detect and prevent email spoofing, or phishing scams. This could open the door for phishing emails to make their way into your inbox.
To be fair, TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA have DMARC in place but are not using it to block fraudulent emails. TaxAct and H&R Block don’t use the protocol at all according to GCA. It turns out that Liberty Tax is the only top tax software provider that uses DMARC to block phishing emails.
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