ABC investigations uncovered a vulnerability in the MyGov and ATO systems which is being exploited to defraud taxpayers. It’s a loophole which no amount of careful management of your online activity can prevent. The vulnerability allows the fraudster to create a bogus account and link it to the victim’s tax file number. All that is needed to create a myGov account is an email address, no proof of identity is required. And the linking of a tax file number can be done with with a tax file number, date of birth and another credential. From there, the fraudster is able to disassociate the victim’s myGov account so that they won’t receive any alerting or notification. And they can use the account to do tax refund fraud. Apparently this is not uncommon and the ABC investigation journalist were advised that there are lots of fraudulent myGov accounts accessing tax files.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-18/ato-tax-hacked-via-mygov-services-australia-exploit/101781656
This segment was created for the It’s 5:05 podcast