Phishing Scams: UK Tax Service Issues A Warning

The volume of smishing reports increased by 56% to reach 57, 579 while the number of phone scams reported by the public jumped by a staggering 234% to reach 195, 720 in 2019.  The volume of fake UK Tax Service (HMRC) phishing emails reported by the British public has fallen sharply over the past two years, whilst over the same period reports  of tax related to SMS tesxt and phone-based scams has  increased.

The leading UK legsl fim Griffin Law obtained the figures from the UK HMRC under a freedom of information request related to their suspicious tax email referral service and it doesn’t provide a full picture of the scale of the phishing threat facing Brirish taxpayers, it does give useful insight into general trends.

From January 1 2018 to December 31 2019 there were a total of over 1.5 million reported scams. Although the vast majority (77%) of attacks came via email, the volume actually dropped by 60% between 2018 and 2019.

That could partly be explained by greater public awareness of such scams, but also seems to show an increasing willingness on the part of fraudsters to use different communications methods to trick taxpayers. “It’s no surprise that cyber-criminals see impersonating HMRC through fraudulent phishing schemes as an easy route to securing cash pay-outs from unsuspecting victims", Chris Ross SVP of network security company Barracuda Networks speaking to Infosecurity Magazine.

“Moving forward, it’s vital that there is much more public awareness about how advanced and prevalent these phishing schemes have become. It’s also important to recognise the lengths these criminals will go to trick entrepreneurs, finance workers and vulnerable or elderly people into handing over PIN codes or transferring money to false accounts.”

The HMRC is reported to have received over 2.6 m phishing reports from the public since the 2016-17 financial year and with the support of the British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) the tax servive has been taking measure to improve resilience against these attacks.

HMRC Advice:

• Recognise the signs - genuine organisations like banks and HMRC will never contact you out of the blue to ask for your PIN, password or bank details.
• Stay safe - don’t give out private information, reply to text messages, download attachments or click on links in emails you weren’t expecting.
• Take action - forward details of suspicious calls claiming to be from HMRC to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk and texts to 60599, or contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use their online fraud reporting tool, especially if you suffer financial loss.
• Check GOV.UK for information on how to avoid and report scams and recognise genuine HMRC contact.
• If you think you have received an HMRC related phishing/bogus email or text message, you can check it against the examples shown in this guide.

HMRC:         Griffin Law:        Inforsecuity Magazine:       National Union of Students: 

You Might Also Read: 

The Most Common Cyber Attacks: