Full Notification

Warning to Residents and Businesses about a Tax Filing e-mail scam containing the ZeuS Banking Trojan. The scam arrives in the form of an email that appears to be legitimately from the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS).

The subject line is “Your Federal Tax Payment Notice #######” (where # is a digit) and advises the recipient that their tax filing has been rejected.

Recipients are instructed to open the attached .zip file to obtain specific details about their payment and instructions for correcting the error. Clicking on the attachment automatically downloads the ZeuS Banking Trojan which begins seeking the user’s banking information leaving their accounts vulnerable.

ZeuS is a well-known banking Trojan horse program and is often used by criminals specializing in financial fraud. This trojan steals data from infected computers via web browsers.

This spam campaign has been targeting companies and organizations that have used a tax preparation service to file their taxes. The fraudulent email arrives shortly after their business taxes have been filed which makes the scam appear legitimate.

Another round of phishing IRS Scam Emails direct users to an innocuous page which they read and exit. Immediately after clicking the link,the ZeuS Banking Trojan malware will then install itself on your computer.

Protect yourself from e-mail scammers. Be wary of any suspicious email communications and exercise caution when opening any links contained in emails.

Note that the IRS does not get in touch with individuals via e-mail. Suspicious IRS e-mails can be directed to [email protected]