All of our clients should know that there are specific kinds of hackers/bad guys that target tax preparers and our clients. One of the most common ones was described by IRS Commissioner John A. Koskinen at the recent IRS Nationwide Tax Forum, it’s called a client email hack.
This kind of hacking begins with a hacker getting into your email account, and then sending an email to us with instructions to change the account information when you file, so that your refund is sent to their account instead of yours.
Generally, firms like Tardy & Co., PC that are extremely client focused are significantly less likely to fall for something like that with our clients, since we actually know our clients and will call you if you’re suddenly and unexpectedly emailing us with changes to account information. However, this does show the importance of having a secure email account.
We posted some easy tips about a year ago here, and we recommend checking it out again: Scammers and Solutions. We’ve updated that post with a link to a great blog about passwords on the website Cloudwards too, which has some methods to generate very complex passwords.