House speaker criticizes IRS cybersecurity

The Office of the Speaker of the House posted a scathing blog entry criticizing the IRS for not getting all its security controls in order in time for tax season.

"Right now, as you’re sending the IRS just about everything there is to know about you, it remains highly vulnerable to hackers and cyberattacks," Michael Shapiro, communications adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan, wrote in the March 30 post. "And the agency has no intention of doing anything about it."

In a report released March 28, the Government Accountability Office issued 43 recommendations for the IRS to patch its information security vulnerabilities. GAO found that weaknesses in security controls threaten to compromise taxpayers’ sensitive data. Of the 12 systems GAO reviewed, two lacked critical patches.

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