This article was written by JIM AMBRAMS, AP writer
Computer security problems found at IRS
IRS employees ignorged security rules and turned over sensitive computer information to a caller posing as a techincal support technician according to a government study.
Sixty-one of the 102 people who got the test calls, including managers and a contractor, complied with a request that the employee provide his or her user name and temporaily change his or her password to one the caller suggested, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, an office that does oversight of the IRS.
The caller asked for assistance to correct a computer problem.
The report said that by falling to question the identiy of the caller the employees were putting the IRS at risk of providing unauthorized access to taxpayer data that could be used for identiy therft and other fraudulent schemes.
"This is especially disturbing because the IRS has taken many steps to raise employee awareness of the importance of protecting their comeputers and passwords," said Inspector General J. Russell George.
Only eight of the 102 employees contacted ether the inspecort general's office or IRS security office to validate the legitimacy of the call.
The report said the IRS took measures to immprove security after two similar test telephone calls in 2001 and 2004. "However, the corrective actions have not been effective," it said.
The IRS agreed with recommendations from the inspector general that it should take steps to make emplyees more of hacker tactis such as posing as an internal employee and to remind people to report such incidents to security officials.
The IRS has nearly 100,000 employees and contractors with access to tax return information processed on about 240 computer systems and more than 1,500 databaseses.
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On the Net:
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:
http;//www.treas.gov/tigta/
With the quality of employees working for State and Federal government this will be an on going problem. The problem with civil service is that it is hard as hell to fire an employee who does not do their job properly.
