Almost 1,000 bogus websites have been shut down and more than 200,000 bogus emails purporting to come from HMRC have been reported in the past year, HMRC said as it announced a new cyber crime team to ‘tackle tax fraud by organised criminals more proactively’.
The new team was designed to protect HMRC and taxpayers from organised attacks on tax repayment systems, and would provide HMRC with a ‘better awareness’ of the nature of the threat by using specialist forensic tools to exploit intelligence, the department said.
The team should have been created by the end of November 2011, according to HMRC’s Structural Reform Plan. HMRC’s monthly update for February 2012, published on the Prime Minister’s website on 9 March, said ‘recruitment activity’ was still ongoing, and substantial progress had been made in relation to ‘these highly specialised roles’.
Almost 1,000 bogus websites have been shut down and more than 200,000 bogus emails purporting to come from HMRC have been reported in the past year, HMRC said as it announced a new cyber crime team to ‘tackle tax fraud by organised criminals more proactively’.
The new team was designed to protect HMRC and taxpayers from organised attacks on tax repayment systems, and would provide HMRC with a ‘better awareness’ of the nature of the threat by using specialist forensic tools to exploit intelligence, the department said.
The team should have been created by the end of November 2011, according to HMRC’s Structural Reform Plan. HMRC’s monthly update for February 2012, published on the Prime Minister’s website on 9 March, said ‘recruitment activity’ was still ongoing, and substantial progress had been made in relation to ‘these highly specialised roles’.