IRS Rebate Phishing Scam

US-CERT is aware of a public report indicating that a phishing scam is circulating. This scam is related to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service economic stimulus rebate and arrives via email messages that appear to be from the IRS. The messages include text that attempts to convince users to follow a link to a website before a deadline to expedite the rebate process. This website requests that the user provide bank account information.

US-CERT encourages users to do the following to help mitigate the risks:

• Do not follow unsolicited web links received in email messages.
• Refer to the Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams (pdf) document for more information on avoiding email scams.
• Refer to the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks (pdf) document for more information on social engineering attacks.
• Refer to the Internal Revenue Service Service Suspicious e-Mails and Identity Theft website for more information on current scams.