Taxpayers are assisting cyber criminals to commit fraud

Pretending to be the Australian Taxation Office, cyber criminals are using an email scam to get credit card details, tax file numbers and other personal details of people who without any doubts are giving away their identity. People are promised a $250 bonus on top of a tax return in the email and asked to send the printed version of the form which they have filled out online. The managing director of Symantec Australia and New Zealand, Craig Scroggie, says that by pressing the print button on their computers, people are allowing criminals to access their accounts.  

Smart cyber criminals are aware of the fact that people know the phishing scams, and therefore use more sophisticated ways of committing fraud. Internet thieves are getting the advantage of the perception of people about the absence of any threat to personal details when printing the online forms and mailing them as the result of which they caused harm to Australian businesses in the amount of $595 million to $649 million in 2007, according to the Australian Bureau of Criminology. Furthermore, the last year report of Symantec states that the techniques used by cyber criminals allowed them to access to $6 billion worth of credit card and bank details in 2008. 
 
The use of remote servers, called bots, and the availability of them everywhere make it difficult for security agencies to trace criminals.  

The ATO warns people about the new similar scam email and advises to delete such emails immediately after the receipt of them. The commissioner of the ATO, Mr D’Ascenzo said that it was not the practice of the tax office to send emails to people and request them to provide personal information. "As an extra precaution we recommend you type internet addresses directly into your internet browser rather than clicking on links embedded in emails" is said in the statement of the ATO.