Steve Bousquet reports: For the second time in two months, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration has acknowledged it inadvertently released confidential personal data of private citizens, prompting the state to offer free credit monitoring services to protect people from being victims of identity theft. The Department of State said it released names, dates of birth and…
Category: U.S.
Former Kwiktax employee sentenced for tax refund fraud
Valorie Shaw has been sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $309,834 for conspiring to file false claims. Shaw, 38, of Oakland, pleaded guilty on January 23, 2015, to conspiracy to file false claims. Shaw was employed as a tax return preparer at “Kwiktax” for three years. Prior to working…
Update on Sterne Agee Group laptop breach
Last July – and I missed this one at the time – Stan Diel reported; A laptop computer including some Sterne Agee Group Inc. clients’ account numbers, Social Security numbers and other personal information has been missing since the end of May and the firm has offered some customers free identity theft protection services as a result, a…
Anon Coders take control of Kentucky GOP’s site; says expect more
Brad Bowman reports: The international hacking group, Anon Coders, still had control of the Republican Party of Kentucky’s website until about 11 a.m. Tuesday and told The State Journal they did it to spread the message not all Muslims are terrorists. RPK Chairman Steve Robertson said the website went down sometime Saturday afternoon and as…
FL: Jail worker indicted on charges of inmate ID theft, tax fraud
Desiree Stennett reports: An Orange County Jail worker is expected to go to trial in July after she was accused of stealing personal information from inmates and giving it to identity thieves who filed fake tax returns. Corrections officer Lori Ann Dilworth and her two accused accomplices, Shantrell Stephenson and Richard Mitchell, face charges of…
100,000 taxpayers’ information accessed in IRS security breach
Associated Press reports: Thieves used an online service provided by the IRS to gain access to information from more than 100,000 taxpayers, the agency said Tuesday. The information included tax returns and other tax information on file with the IRS. The IRS said the thieves accessed a system called “Get Transcript.” In order to access…