NEW DELHI : Taking note of the spate of phishing and cheat refund emails landing in inboxes of taxpayers, the Income Tax department has referred over 100 such instances to the country’s premier cyber security agency to block these hackers lurking in the e-world.
The department is particularly worried after taxpayers recently brought to its notice certain emails which have very cleverly “spoofed the department’s identity” by using almost resembling addresses to cheat gullible taxpayers over the Internet.
One such example is hackers using the email domain– “mailto:noreply@incometaxindia.Gov.In”, noreply@incometaxindia.Gov.In” to send such phishing emails.
“The department has reported over 100 phishing emails and hacking attempts through fake websites and links to the Computer Emergency Response Team-India also called the CERT-In.
“The CERT-In has been informed that these emails are a serious concern for the taxpayers and the Income Tax department as this malicious assault over the Internet directly dents the taxman’s efforts to effectively engage with the tax paying public in a paperless and non-adversarial manner and dissuades an individual from conducting safe e-transactions,” a senior official supervising the counter operations in this domain said.
The CERT-In is the nodal agency to combat hacking, phishing and to fortify security-related defences of Indian Internet domain.
The department, the official said, has asked the cyber security sleuths to specifically go behind the fraud and malicious email domains and URLs and ensure that such e-links are not able to send emails to the bonafide address of the taxpayer. (AGENCIES)
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