The director of the revenue agency does not send emails

The Inland Revenue has communicated the emergence of a new wave of spam that uses the name of the Agency to deceive the recipients of the messages. Although for the most knowledgeable people on the subject the problem may seem minor, in reality the threat could be vast: if the entity has gone so far as to communicate what emerged, obviously the numbers of the attack are worrying and the reactions of taxpayers could have generated more than a problem.

Agenzia delle Entrate: watch out for malware

The e-mails refer to "The director of the Revenue Agency" or "The organs of the Revenue Agency", and report texts such as:

Dear taxpayer,

From the examination of the data and balances relating to the Disclosure of the periodic VAT eliminations, which you showed for the second quarter of 2019, some inconsistencies.

It should be clear to everyone that the Revenue Agency does not report any problems via e-mail, nor is it the Director of the agency itself who deals with them directly. The purpose of the email is to lead the taxpayer to open the attachment (apparently an Excel file) and, according to the Agency's findings, these files contend with unspecified malware, "in order to subsequently acquire confidential information".

Fake mail from the Revenue Agency

This is the notice issued as a result:

The Agency recommends taxpayers to always carefully check the messages received and, if these appear suspicious, especially if the senders are unknown, not to open the attachments or follow the links in the emails (also to avoid damage to their PCs, tablets and smartphones) and trash them. Furthermore, he specifies that communications containing personal data of taxpayers are never sent by email. Personal information can only be consulted in the fiscal drawer, accessible through the reserved area on the Agenzia delle Entrate website.

In the last few months many more people have started to manage some files online, they have started looking after the mailbox. and then began to deal with problems they previously didn't know existed. The improvised opening of a similar attachment is therefore unfortunately a very common case. The advice is always the same, but it is worth remembering them for the purposes of the necessary disclosure:

do not open attachments whose origin you are not sure about ignore emails whose origin cannot be ascertained (especially when they request opening an attachment or clicking on a link) make sure you have an antivirus installed and updated (a few euros investment, see the available offers) keep the operating system updated by installing monthly patches Keeping the attention threshold high is essential to prevent attacks of this type from being successful, giving malicious people the opportunity to carry out initiatives that can cause serious damage to both private and corporate PCs.

Source: Agenzia delle Entrate