preview

Essay On Data Breaching

Decent Essays

Referring to an article by Identity Force, there were investigations found that there was an act of data breaching involved in the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (Daitch 2017). This tool is used when college students are attentively trying to complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Not until March 2017, is when federal officials observed what was actually going on and took down the tool. In this case of data breaching, it was said that identity thieves pulled personal information outside of the tax system to steal additional data (2017). It’s already a headache to have to deal with paying for college and this situation made it worse and more stressful for people applying for the annual application to get it done. This tool …show more content…

The DRT allows students and parents to access their Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) information through an interface with the IRS to complete the FAFSA by transferring the AGI information directly into their FAFSA application form (2016). This is one of the main reasons why it was very easy for these cyber terrorists to get ahold of viable information. There had been a few attempted accesses to the individual AGI, following September 2016, which led to an arrest that same year. This administration is still continuing criminal investigations of this activity and looking over evidence obtained from the investigations of the e-Authentication misuse to determine if the FAFSA and DRT criminal activity were ever launched by the same people or groups. At one point, there was evidence found as far back as February 2016, where the person involved in the e-Authentication investigation discussed the availability of AGI information using FAFSA and the DRT. Then after looking at a whole other file of information and email addresses, there is decent evidence that shows the same people and groups engaged in criminal activity on the e-Authentication portal are involved in this misuse of the FAFSA and the DRT.
Long Term Ramifications
Long-term ramifications that could be involved with this threat would be cyber terrorists being able to find a

Get Access