The danger is that filers of tax reimbursement are likely to open unsolicited e-mails, which appear as being sent from HMRC, but actually contaminate their PCs, Trusteer warns.

Stated CEO Mickey Boodaei of Trusteer, earlier during February 2010, the company had alerted users banking online about malware infections and phishing resulting from e-mails that claimed to provide tax credits. Moreover, considering that such fraudulent, spoofed e-mails were two times more effective than bank phishing e-mails, online crooks had realized that any electronic mail displaying "HMRC" in its subject line was even more appealing as far as recipients were concerned, Boodaei added. HelpNetSecurity published this on July 7, 2010.

Actually, it is possible that computer hackers will abuse the public's enthusiasm about tax refunds and credits, using a whole lot of malicious e-mails having web-links associated with malware-infested sites.

Lately, when Trusteer assessed a botnet specifically designed for U.K that contained information about more than 10,000 people, the company found that the malicious network was actively seeking the details to log into the HMRC online site. This was demonstrated with the bot controllers' data repository that contained the passwords and login credentials for HMRC. Evidently, fraudsters have a variety of VAT and tax related scams to execute against Internet users if they get to know those users' HMRC login details.

Stated head of information security and business resilience Mick Paisley, the timing and character of the above kind of phishing was such that people could hardly overlook it. This was published on July 7, 2010.

Hence, according to the security specialists, whenever a tax refund alternatively some similar cash giveaway promise from HMRC comes to an Internet user via e-mail, he must simply overlook the message.

Additionally, people should neither follow the URL-link given in such e-mails nor reveal personal details. HMRC would neither notify consumers about a tax credit electronically nor ask them to fill out a form online for getting one.