- Apr 21, 2016
- 4,370
Hackers managed to steal up to $30 million from the US government by exploiting a tool created so students could apply for loans. To make matters worse, nearly 100,000 people are at risk of identity theft due to the hack.
Hackers managed to breach the IRS's Data Retrieval Tool, which is used by parents to transfer financial information for their kids using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The system has been shut down until the IRS can figure out which of the requests were made by legitimate students, and which were made by criminals.
According to a statement made by John Koskinen, IRS Commissioner, the agency delayed refunds from being released to 52,000 taxpayers until they can verify their requests were real. "It was clear that some of that activity was legitimate students, some of it was criminals. So we shut the system down," he said.
Read more: Hackers Steal $30M from IRS via Student Loan Tool
Hackers managed to breach the IRS's Data Retrieval Tool, which is used by parents to transfer financial information for their kids using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The system has been shut down until the IRS can figure out which of the requests were made by legitimate students, and which were made by criminals.
According to a statement made by John Koskinen, IRS Commissioner, the agency delayed refunds from being released to 52,000 taxpayers until they can verify their requests were real. "It was clear that some of that activity was legitimate students, some of it was criminals. So we shut the system down," he said.
Read more: Hackers Steal $30M from IRS via Student Loan Tool
