With the advancement of technology, many everyday tasks and processes have moved to the digital world. Among them, without being outdone, the income tax return serves as an example.
It has been possible for some time now to do it through the screen, remotely. A format that provides greater facilities for both the Tax Agency and taxpayers... and also for professional fraudsters. Cybercriminals also have a new ally: artificial intelligence (AI).
Scam attempts using mobile devices or computers have become common these days. There are those who think that it makes no sense to fall for this type of deception, that they are old-fashioned scams. But the reality is very different: "In the last year we have stopped some 10 billion threats, 75% of which are online scam attempts," says Luís Corrons, Security Evangelist at Grupo Gen.
The most common scams occur by email or SMS, and the most used strategy is phishing. This consists of adopting the appearance and identity of the Tax Agency, in this case, perfectly cloning its website, its logos and the style with which it writes its texts, to make the victim believe that it is an official channel. and that it is safe to enter your data. "They usually ask for your username, password, ID, telephone number, and sometimes even your credit card. This may be to steal your money, impersonate your identity, or sell the information," says Luís Corrons.
In the middle of the tax return campaign, this is the center of all scams. Some cases of fraud with the Tax Agency that have been detected recently contained messages such as the following: "Identified incident in your declaration. Possible sanction 1059.75 EUR, send the necessary documentation immediately" (sic).
These are very well organized groups that have carefully studied the most effective strategy. "You shouldn't underestimate them. They invest a lot in time, they look for work schedules to catch you in a hurry and they use urgency to put pressure on you. And in the end you fall, because with the fear of running out of time you don't look at anything. They also make use of catchy, eye-catching messages," says Marc Rivero, Kaspersky spokesperson.
The explosion of AI has also reached this phenomenon: "We have recently noticed a drop in the number of spelling and grammatical errors in the texts of scammers' pirate websites. This is due to the use of AI for the automatic generation of texts", concludes Luís Corrons of Grupo Gen. These spelling errors made it possible to detect the scam more easily, now they are almost imperceptible.
The advice offered by experts to avoid falling into this type of fraud only applies to common sense and thinking twice before accessing external links. "It is laborious but we must review everything before entering our data on any website. A quick way to catch it can be the domain, compare it with the official one," says Rivero, and warns: "There are not only cases of impersonation of the Agency Tax, they also take the opportunity to pose as financial consultants, tax return processing agencies or even departments of the Ministry of Finance."
Among other recommendations that experts point out are: download the official app, review scams detected in previous years, keep an eye on the networks in case new scams are detected or contact official contact channels in case of doubt. All prevention saves trouble.
