Client data of the Republika Srpska (RS) Tax Administration and email addresses of the employees of this institution are on sale on criminal dark web forums, CAPITAL portal has learned.

“According to the information we had insight into, the leak of taxpayer data occurred due to the use of official emails of RS Tax Administration employees for access to entertainment websites, classified ads and LinkedIn,” Capital said.

Several forums on the dark web have already released information and offered to sell data from around 410 users of the Tax Administration. The data, i.e. passwords used by legal and natural persons to access their profiles in the Tax Administration database, were also offered.

According to IT experts, this is most likely not a “ransomware” attack, but it undoubtedly has something to do with the desperately poor protection of extremely sensitive data and potentially with the break-in at the Integrated Health Information System of the RS that took place on December 31, 2023, at around 12:20 pm, when all patient records were locked out and the database was offered for sale.

The Tax Administration management was informed about the data leak in order to prevent more damage, to which they reacted quickly.

“We want to point out that we immediately reacted to the allegations of journalists. All data related to the Health Insurance Fund, with which we exchange data in accordance with the Law, are currently under careful scrutiny. Beneficiary names associated with the Health Insurance Fund have been identified as a potential source of problems. In order to protect the integrity of our systems, we immediately suspended all connections to the Fund and blocked access to all system users until further notice. All data related to the Health Insurance Fund, with which we exchange data, are currently under careful verification,” said the Tax Administration.

They added that their team of experts “actively monitors the situation, conducts an investigation and reacts promptly in order to ensure the protection of all data and systems of the Tax Administration.”