Inland Revenue warns of rise in malicious activity as hackers access 300 myIR accounts | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #hacker

The tax agency said it noticed a significant increase in malicious logon attempts last month, with more than 500,000 such efforts.

“Inland Revenue believes two-step verification, rolled out last year
to give an added layer of protection, prevented access to most accounts. However, around 300 myIR accounts which did not have 2SV set up were accessed,” Inland Revenue said.

“Those 300 accounts have been closed, and we are monitoring up to 900 accounts where a correct password was entered, but two-factor authentication prevented access.”

Inland Revenue said it is contacting the 300 affected customers to let them know unusual activity on their account was detected.