Hackers Had Access To Tax Data For Up To 100,000 FAFSA Users

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Hackers gained access to the tax records of up to 100,000 people who used a government-created financial aid tool, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner said Thursday, explaining why the tool was taken offline at the peak of application season last month.

The tool was built into the government's Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and enabled users to import their tax information into their financial aid and student loan forms. It was compromised in a security breach, and fraudulent refunds using the data have already cost the government $30 million and exposed tens of thousands of people to identity theft.

About 8,000 fraudulent tax refunds were issued because of the breach of the so-called IRS Data Retrieval Tool, IRS commissioner John Koskinen said in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. Another 14,000 fraudulent refunds were blocked.

The tool was taken offline in March with no warning from the government, and the IRS and Education Department initially said it would return within weeks. The outage is now expected to drag into October. “I told them that as soon as there was any indication of criminal activity, we would have to take that application down,” Koskinen said.

The shuttering of the tool has caused massive headaches and a cascade of other consequences for some financial aid applicants and student loan borrowers, particularly low-income students. It requires students to manually input data that they may not readily have access too, and with the tool offline, students are more likely to have their FAFSA applications flagged for vetting — a time-consuming process that could cause first-come, first-serve aid to run out for some students, and that evidence suggests may deter others from applying for aid altogether.

The IRS uses filers&039; adjusted gross incomes as the primary way to verify taxpayers&039; identity, but the data retrieval tool was designed to allow people to more easily access that same number. Koskinen said that the IRS had detected a “pattern of activity” that suggested the tool was being used fraudulently.

Quelle: <a href="Hackers Had Access To Tax Data For Up To 100,000 FAFSA Users“>BuzzFeed

Twitter Sues Feds Over Attempt To Reveal Identity Behind @ALT_USCIS Account

Via Twitter: @ALT_uscis

WASHINGTON — Twitter sued the Trump administration on Thursday, trying to stop an attempt at forcing the company to reveal personal information about the user of the @ALT_USCIS account.

“The rights of free speech afforded Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” the lawsuit argues.

Filed in federal court in California, the lawsuit seeks a court order stopping the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from using its summons authority to demand Twitter turn over personal identifying information relating to the account, identified on Twitter as an “immigration resistance” account and “[n]ot the views of DHS or USCIS.”

The lawsuit alleges that the request violates the First Amendment, is not authorized under the relevant summons law, violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

“In these circumstances, Defendants may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed, that unmasking the users’ identity is the least restrictive means for investigating that offense, that the demand for this information is not motivated by a desire to suppress free speech, and that the interests of pursuing that investigation outweigh the important First Amendment rights of Twitter and its users,” Twitter&#039;s lawyers from Wilmer Hale — including former US Solicitor General Seth Waxman — write. “But Defendants have not come close to making any of those showings.”

The ACLU has informed BuzzFeed News that it is representing the @ALT_USCIS user, and will be making a court filing on behalf of the user in the near future, raising statutory and constitutional arguments.

“The right to anonymously speak out against the government is clearly protected by the First Amendment. We are pleased to see Twitter standing up for its users’ rights, and the ACLU will soon be filing documents in court on behalf of this user,” ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “To unmask an anonymous speaker online, the government must have a strong justification. But in this case the government has given no reason at all, leading to concerns that it is simply trying to stifle dissent.”

On March 14, according to the complaint, an agent with CBP faxed a summons to Twitter, ordering it to turn over “[a]ll records regarding the twitter account @ALT_USCIS to include, User name, account login, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and I.P. addresses.”

As noted in the complaint, however, “The CBP Summons ordered Twitter to produce the records to a CBP office in Washington D.C. by 11:45 A.M. on March 13, 2017—the day before the CBP Summons was faxed to Twitter.”

This is the summons faxed to Twitter:

Via documentcloud.org

Read the lawsuit:

Quelle: <a href="Twitter Sues Feds Over Attempt To Reveal Identity Behind @ALT_USCIS Account“>BuzzFeed