HMRC lost £47m after a phishing scam breached tens of thousands of tax accounts.
Two senior civil servants at HRMC told the Treasury Committee that 100,000 people had been contacted, or are in the process of being contacted, after their accounts were locked down in what was an ‘organised crime’ incident, which began last year.
Freeths LLP’s Will Richmond-Coggan (pictured) said: “While HMRC are at pains to stress that they own systems had not been compromised in a cyber attack, this incident nonetheless underscores how widespread the consequences of cyber incidents can be. It is clear from HRMC’s explanation that the crime against HMRC was only possible because of earlier data breaches and cyber attacks, Those earlier attacks put personal data in the hands of the criminals which enabled them to impersonate tax payers and apply successfully to claim back tax.”
