Stimulus scam alert: These fake child tax credit websites will steal your identity

Stimulus scam warning: These fake child revenue enhancement credit websites will steal your identity

Yellow sign reading 'SCAM ALERT' atop white computer keyboard.

(Image credit: karen roach/Shutterstock)

Nigerian scammers have created more than 50 fake U.Southward. authorities sites aiming to steal the identities of Americans hoping to get additional stimulus money, reports information-security firm DomainTools.

The websites have addresses such as "AmericanReliefPlan.com", "AmericaFundForStimulus.com" and "ReliefCareFunds.com". (A full list is in the DomainTools report.) These sites claim to be connected to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the legislation that President Joe Biden signed into police force in March that created the third wave of stimulus checks.

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The law also provides for six months of accelerate payments for kid tax credits in 2021. Nearly everyone in the U.S. who has a child under 18 at habitation volition get hundreds of dollars from the federal government every month between July and December.

In almost cases, American parents and legal guardians don't need to exercise anything to get that money. The get-go round of checks and direct deposits went out July fifteen. But the U.S. government hasn't done the all-time task of making that clear, and people understandably have questions almost how to sign upwards for the greenbacks.

That'south where the scammers jump in.

"Many relief recipients are unaware that this relief volition be automatically assigned to them by the IRS," DomainTools senior security researcher Chad Anderson wrote in the company's report.

"Scammers are using this every bit an opportunity to collect Social Security numbers and driver'southward license photographs to use in identity theft."

The dangers of giving out personal information

The scam sites also ask for your mobile phone number, dwelling address, date of birth and mother's maiden name, among other things.

Your mobile number tin be used to reset online account passwords, and so can your mother's maiden name. Your address and engagement of birth, when combined with your total name and Social Security number, tin be used to steal your identity.

DomainTools institute that a legitimate web-design house in Ibadan, western Nigeria, had registered the suspect domains by at least early June, as media attention began to focus on the American child-tax-credit advance payments. Anderson said DomainTools had tried to contact the web-design house but had received no reply.

And then if you lot run into a site challenge that you need to provide personal information to become kid taxation credits, exist very suspicious. Only the IRS Child Tax Credit portal, which looks very boring and whose address ends in "irs.gov," should exist request for such information.

Once more, almost everyone who'southward eligible to receive child-tax-credit accelerate payments is automatically enrolled. Most people don't need to annihilation to get the money, and nosotros have detailed guides for those who do.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He'southward been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random Television news spots and fifty-fifty moderated a panel give-and-take at the CEDIA home-technology briefing. You tin can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.