The threat of cyber security to tax administration

Posted by Mark Brousseau

“The way tax administration occurs today has significantly changed,” Devon Bryan, CISSP, deputy associate CIO, cyber security, Internal Revenue Service, told attendees at the Federation of Tax Administrators (FTA) Annual Meeting at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta this afternoon. “Modern tax administration has grown increasingly dependent on the near limitless interconnectivity of the Internet to provide instant access to information and services. But that comes with a risk.”

Bryan said, “We are now facing a flood of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. As commercial and government services continue to be made available online, the amount of sensitive and financial data transmitted over the internet, also increases.” He pointed to the 2009 Internet Crime Report which reported that the Internet Crime Complaint Center web site received more than 300,000 compliant submissions last year – a 22.3 percent increase as compared to 2008. The FBI estimates that more money was made in cybercrime last year than in illegal drug trafficking, Bryan added.

And that’s a chilling thought, Bryan said, when you consider that data networks now underlie the U.S. power grid, the country’s military operations, and its telecommunications infrastructure.

Data networks also are becoming critical to U.S. tax administration.

And that’s why tax processors need to be more vigilant about cyber security, Bryan said.