Hackers might have stolen IRS data on more than 300,000 households
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Many people rely on security questions like "What's your mother's maiden name?" to protect their personal information online, but hackers are getting better at finding the answers.
Case in point: the hackers who raided US Government's Internal Revenue Service data systems. Those attackers were much more successful at answering security questions than previously known, the government agency announced Monday, underscoring the dangers of using simple security to protect valuable data.
More than 300,000 households face "possible or potential" loss of their personal information to the electronic attackers, the agency said. That's more than twice the initial estimate of 114,000 households given by the IRS in May.
