Skip to main content

You are here

Advertisement

IRS Security Summit Urges Multi-Factor Authentication

Technical Resources

A coalition of representatives of the IRS, the software industry, tax preparers, payroll and tax financial product processors and state tax administrators are urging the use of multi-factor authentication. 

Those representatives—numbering 62 state and private-sector offices as well as the IRS and known as the Security Summit—advocate multi-factor authentication as a means to stop identity theft aimed at refund fraud. But such authentication could be helpful in protecting other data and access related to employee benefits, including retirement benefits. 

Multi-factor authentication, they argue, provides more security by allowing use of a feature such as a security code sent to a mobile device, a pin number or a fingerprint in addition to the username and password. A thief may steal usernames and passwords, the Summit says, but cannot access accounts without the additional multifactor feature.

But the Summit does not stop there and suggests additional steps to protect sensitive data, such as use of: 

  • anti-virus software, set for automatic updates; 
  • firewalls;
  • backup software/services;
  • drive encryption; and 
  • virtual private networks. 

How serious is the problem? The IRS says that from Jan. 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021, tax professionals have reported 222 data theft reports. During the same period last year, there were 211, and even fewer in those six months in 2019: 124. And that can have significant ramifications, the IRS indicates; it notes that each individual report may involve hundreds to thousands of taxpayers.