IRS crash was technical, not cyber

Outage is the latest in a series electronic problems at the tax agency

The computer outage that halted IRS tax return processing for more than a day resulted from not just one hardware failure but two, the tax agency says.

An electrical voltage regulator on the computer server that handles tax returns for millions of Americans started to fail on Feb. 3, Terence Milholland, the IRS’ chief technology officer, testified at a Thursday hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

As a technician worked to address the problem, a backup voltage regulator also failed, he said. Approximately 30 hours elapsed before the IRS was able to fix the regulators and resume normal service.

Seeking to allay any fears that something more sinister might have been to blame, Milholland said, “This was, with absolute certainty, not a cyberattack. It was a failure of mechanical devices.”

The episode marked the latest in a series of computer problems that have embarrassed the IRS, and, in some cases, raised the risk that personal information could be accessed, used to steal taxpayers’ identities, file fraudulent tax returns and collect refunds.

The tax agency this week disclosed that it detected unauthorized efforts to gain access to e-file personal identification numbers for more than 450,000 Social Security numbers in late January. Approximately 101,000 of those efforts succeeded in accessing an e-file ID number, the IRS said.

No personal taxpayer information on the computer system was compromised, the tax agency said. IRS personnel are now mailing affected taxpayers alerts about the problem.

“Until the IRS takes steps to improve its security program deficiencies and fully implement all security program areas in compliance with (Department of Homeland Security-directed) requirements, taxpayer data will remain vulnerable to inappropriate and undetected use, modification or disclosure,” a September 2015 inspector general report concluded.