The refund had been loaded onto a GreenDot debit card issued out of state. Jim called IRS and found out that “his” refund had already been issued. Maybe, he thought, his federal refund was safe. He had been somewhat assured by the fact that most of the TurboTax-related refund thefts making news were for state returns. Jim wasn’t worried about his state tax refund, where most of the fraud seemed to be targeted. Jim’s situation was, however, a little bit different that what was plaguing other taxpayers at the time. Instead, they maintain that affected taxpayers had their data stolen elsewhere while TurboTax has not publicly linked Anthem to taxpayer problems, that’s exactly what Jim says they told him. They also deny that the FBI has made them a target of investigations relating to a data breach. For its part, TurboTax has consistently maintained that it was not a victim of a breach. It’s also been suggested that Chinese or possibly Russian sources were involved in security breaches affecting TurboTax users. ![]() IP addresses from China have been linked to the Anthem hack though neither the FBI nor Anthem have been willing to confirm the details. I spoke with experts in tech and security arenas - who, like Jim, wished to remain anonymous - and they’ve suggested that they would not be surprised to find that the hacks were orchestrated by the Chinese government. It’s been suggested that the hack could be related to an international crime group or perhaps even an international government. It’s not folks working out of a van with stolen laptops or a teenage kid in a basement. That, security experts say, isn’t the work of a small time hack. Potentially 80 million customers had their data compromised, prompting the state of Connecticut to warn taxpayers that it might be to their advantage to file their taxes early. In the case of Anthem, the hack was massive. Patterns of smaller hacks, probably instituted by criminal rings, have benefited from stolen data, usually orchestrated using someone on the inside.īut that’s likely not what happened here. Over the years, security experts - and the IRS - have been noting and warning that the health care industry could be vulnerable. That data - especially once it’s been matched - is incredibly valuable. You went to Penn State for college and New York University for graduate school. You have a dog named Asta that you take on trips to your favorite vacation spot in the Adironacks. You own your own home and a Subaru Outback. You work at ABC Chemicals and you live at 123 Elm Street, Anytown, USA 12345. ![]() Suddenly, you’re no longer just a random patient named Jane Smith. ![]() As law enforcement told me in 2013, that data is matched to other data. And those thieves don’t care about your health records but the enormous amount of other data - names, addresses, Social Security numbers, employers and the like - that you easily offer up in the name of health care. Medical offices, pharmaceutical companies and health insurance providers have long been a target for identity thieves.
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