Businesses fearful their workers may be targeted by fraudsters will want to take a look at the free Tax Scam Awareness Kit offered by Proofpoint, a data protection company in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The kit, for both Windows and macOS, includes materials for an employee education campaign about tax fraud, three educational videos, an infographic, answers to frequently asked questions about tax scams, and a tax scam flyer.
The kit is designed to be used over a two-week period to educate employees about tax fraud. During the first week, employees are encouraged to visit an IRS website that focuses on tax scams aimed at consumers and to copy and distribute at the office, as well as at home, the “Attack Spotlight” flyer included with the kit.
The flyer has the image of a friendly robot warning that scammers often impersonate government tax agencies or tax preparation services.
It also has some basic cautions. For example, if you receive a tax-related message, don’t interact with it immediately and take your time to evaluate it.
If the message looks legit, verify it with the sender without responding directly to the message, the flyer recommends. You could copy the email address of the sender and send them a separate message, for instance.
Training Videos
During the second week of the program, it’s suggested that employees view the training videos created for the toolkit.
One video is titled “Tax-Related Scams.” In the…
