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Fake myGov profiles are being used to hack ATO accounts
- evolve2k 4y agoThis exact scenario has affected a friend of mine also and I’ve been supporting their in the process. Still have unanswered questions as to weather it’s possible for Australian tax payers to protect from this. Btw this is very serious and potentially can affect every Australian tax payer. For context Australia now provides a portal called MyGov that you log into and can optionally use to link up any other external federal government digital service. Need a disability pension? You link your MyGov account to the Disability department for example. Anyways the ATO link has been optional as the ATO have their own direct login that I think is planned to be deprecated. In my friends case, he didn’t have his MyGov and ATO records linked, seems the exploit is to make a bogus MyGov account and then using the victims private Tax File Number (TFN) to make their own linked service and from there gain access to change bank details, contact details and trigger refunds through lodging fake amendments to past tax returns. Until today my thought was that users need to go and link their ATO account to their MyGov but I’m not sure that’ll address this right now. And yes it’s disgraceful how none of the departments are taking this seriously or with and sense of responsibility or urgency.
- scottmcdot 4y agoFrom this article it sounds like they already had their mygov and ATO linked.