The IRS breach was exceedingly low-tech: it’s at the other end of the spectrum from the infamous and sophisticated Chinese hacking operations. This was just a bunch of bad actors who stole – or bought on the black market – personally identifiable information (PII) on a large number of American taxpayers. They accessed the IRS “Get Transcript” application, and provided answers (or educated guesses) in response to personal questions about their victims. This allowed them to access tax returns and other filings, facilitating lucrative identity thefts in the future.
Though crude, the attacks still generated tell-tale signals, which the IRS was able to spot. However, the alert data was most likely obscured by a huge pile of other information; a needle in a haystack. This problem – spotting red flags in a large quantity of legitimate data – plagues many organizations, not just the IRS. Tools exist to automate attack detection and incident response, but implementation of such systems, throughout the government, must accelerate.
This incident also illustrates our vulnerability as individuals: our personal information is widely dispersed on the Internet, often to places we neither control nor condone. Perhaps one day there will be a universal multi-factor authentication system to guard our PII. In the meantime, though, individuals should jealously guard such information, while government and businesses must step up their incident detection and response capabilities. Advanced attacks require advanced systems; low-tech attacks can be stopped with current technology.
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