The IRS is reporting a large uptick of phishing emails packed with malware with the intent of harvesting personal info.

According to the IRS the situation is quite bad and only in the month of January 2015, the agency received 1,026 reports of tax-related malicious emails, a 400% increase compared to last year when the IRS received only 254 reports of the same type.

As of the 16th day of February, the agency has received 363 reports, compared to the 201 recorded in the entire month of February 2015.

Attackers are also using tax-themed emails to deliver file attachments that are actually laced with dangerous malware, ranging from ransomware to banking trojans.

"Consumers and employees receive some degree of protection against phishing campaigns via spam filters and other technology layers that are supposed to detect scams before they reach inboxes," Aaron Higbee, CTO and cofounder of PhishMe, said. "History shows however, that cybercriminals work faster than technology layers, that sooner or later a malicious email will slip through the automation cracks and that a human will be faced with having to determine whether or not they are being targeted in an attack or scheme."

Just last week, Softpedia reported on an automated attack against the IRS' tax filing Web page, when attackers tried to obtain E-filing PINs for over 464,000 Americans, in the hopes of claiming illegal tax returns.

Source: Softpedia