Now this should make you sleep better at night: In a recent audit, almost 60 percent of IRS employees that were targeted disclosed their computer access information to an auditor who was using ’social engineering’ techniques in an attempt to extract information from the employee.

Social engineering is different from so many of the high-profile ‘hacking’ attacks where the perpetrators use computers to probe other computers and networks for vulnerabilities.

Social engineering involves person-to-person contact, often using the telephone. The perpetrator will often try to convince the victim that they are calling from a technical support department or help desk and that they need access codes or passwords in order to correct a problem.

It’s pretty pathetic that more than half of IRS employees fell victim to these kinds of deceptions.

Here’s an agency that’s basically holding a gun to the head of everyone in the country and forcing us all to provide them with basically all of our personal information so they don’t miss out on taxing every penny we make and now we can’t even be sure they are able to keep our information safe from identity thieves and other crooks.

Thanks so much, IRS. You do so many wonderful things for us and this just sweetens the deal for all of us.

You government in action.

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