Financial Express: New
Delhi: Tuesday, April 08, 2014.
E-filers of
income tax beware! Income tax online return accounts of certain people have
been unauthorisedly accessed, the Finance Ministry has warned.
Replying to
an RTI query, the Ministry said a process of "multifunctional
authentication" has been designed and will be in place shortly to address
any illegal access to e-filers' accounts.
It, however,
said no instance of "hacking", which implies a breach of security
whereby the hackers can obtain passwords by entering into the system, has
happened or reported in the case of e-filling website.
"However,
there have been instances when the authentication details of certain class of
e-filers have been obtained by persons from sources other than the website and
then the passwords were reset and the e-filing account accessed," the
Ministry said.
To address
the issue, a process of multifunctional authentication has been designed and
shall be in place shortly. Details thereof cannot be provided due to security
reasons, it said in reply to an RTI query filed by PTI.
The Ministry
was asked to give detail on hacking of income tax returns filing accounts of
individuals and measures being taken by it to check such activities.
Mumbai Police
had late last year claimed that e-filing accounts of top industrialists, actors
and cricketers including Anil Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni, Shah Rukh
Khan and Salman Khan among others were unauthorisedly accessed.
An individual
or entity can file income tax returns electronically at
www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.
"There
are mobile applications which are not approved by the Income Tax department.
Users are advised that they may not be according to Department Data Structure.
Filers using them are doing at their own risk," said a warning on the
income tax department's website for e-filing.
As many as
2.96 crore have filed income tax returns online during 2013-14, according to a
data available on the website.
The Income
Tax department is encouraging online filing of tax returns in order to digitise
all tax payers related information.
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