https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/identity-verification
I received a letter in the mail indicating that I need to verify my ID with the IRS. Can I be reasonably certain that the website is actually the IRS? Why / How?
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Google the IRS. – schroeder Nov 02 '19 at 20:44
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If anyone sees a problem with the question, please provide more feedback than downvoting. Ideal feedback: a correction to the question. – gatorback Nov 02 '19 at 20:52
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If you hover over the buttons, there are canned downvoting reasons. One of them is "does not show research effort". One can't correct for that. – schroeder Nov 02 '19 at 20:53
2 Answers
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If you Google the IRS you will see:
- irs.gov is the top hit
- irs.gov is in the Google info box on the side
- wikipedia lists irs.gov as the official website
- Twitter lists the official, verified IRS account as having irs.gov as the homepage
In addition:
- .gov websites are not available to the public
- The official government page for America lists irs.gov as the official website
schroeder
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Yes. In general, to be reasonably sure, you need to ensure:
- You haven't installed random root certificates on your computer (for most people that's true)
- The root URL says https://irs.gov
- There is a lock icon on your web browser.
To ensure an extra degree of reasonability, you will need to ensure:
- Your computer manufacturer is trusted
- No root certificate authorities have been hacked
- Your browser hasn't been maliciously modified
- The irs website hasn't been hacked
We rely on certificate authorities to ensure the domain we navigate to leads to the correct website.
Thomas
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All of this would be true and pass your tests for any domain, including
the-real-irs-really.infoCertificates to not certify that the site is genuine. – schroeder Nov 02 '19 at 20:50