The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) recently closed several citizen accounts after discovering that information, such as their username and password, may have been compromised.
On February 16, several taxpayers received a notification informing them to have their email addresses removed from their online file. Since then, these people can no longer log into their accounts, while tax season is upon us. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority declined to specify a number, but according toNational MailMore than 100,000 accounts have been suspended.
CRA confirms that it was never the victim of a cyber attack again.
Remember, between July and August, ARC faced several computer attacks. The personal information of about 48,500 people may have been compromised in these incidents. Since then, the organization says it has tightened its security measures.
Precautionary measure
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority claims to have closed, this time, the affected accounts as a “precaution”. After an “internal analysis”, the organization discovered that some security information “may have been compromised and made available to unauthorized persons.”
These are supporting documents [ID utilisateur et mots de passe] It was not compromised due to a breach of the agency’s systems. Instead, it was obtained by various means from outside sources for the agency, “a spokesperson replied in an email, without providing further details about the means involved.
However, the information in the accounts in question has not been compromised, as the tax authorities confirm.
Effects on benefits
CRA says it is currently communicating with all affected account holders with a view to opening them. For some people, this situation could have an impact on the payment of Canadian emergency benefits.
“Taxpayers are not required to contact us urgently, unless they are claiming emergency benefits and have active claims in our system,” the organization notes.
A victim of this aforementioned situation magazine After the phone had waited for several hours to speak to the CRA official about its file, to no avail.
The CRA is urging Canadians to monitor their accounts for any suspicious activity.
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