Fake Tax Refund Email Invading Australian Citizens’ Inboxes

Watch out! Phishers are currently on the hunt for a new set of credit information. But instead of sending emails that are allegedly from your bank, they are now forwarding email notices that are purportedly from the Australian Tax Office (ATO). ATO recently issued a statement that advises the people of Australia to ignore a fake email claiming that the tax office is currently offering tax refunds to all tax payers.

Genuine-looking messages

As always, the phishers really exerted much effort in composing the fake email messages. To make them look as “genuine” as possible, the fake email messages were even adorned with an authentic-looking tax office logo. To determine whether incoming emails are genuine or not, tax payers need to check the authenticity of the URLs featured in the email messages. “As an extra precaution, we recommend that you type the Internet addresses directly into your Internet browser rather than clicking on links embedded in emails,” said ATO Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo. After all, phishers do try to manipulate links by altering the URLs on the address bar using JavaScript commands.

Information-stealing emails

The objective of the phishers who composed the fake tax refund emails is simple: to collect the credit information of the oblivious tax payers of Australia. In order to fulfil their objective, the phishers asked the recipients of the fake ATO tax refund emails to click on the tax office website link that is embedded on the email message. Instead of directing the tax payers to the official ATO website, the link actually directs the tax payers to the fraudulent website especially designed by the phishers. The fraudulent website features a group of fields wherein the tax payers are “required” to enter their personal details and credit card information. This requirement, of course, helps the phishers in obtaining the necessary information to gain access to the credit card accounts of the Australian tax payers.