Last year, the W-2 scam appeared for the first time. Criminals used emails to impersonating executives to trick payroll and human resource officials into disclosing employee names, SSNs and income information. This information was then utilized by the perpetrators to file phony tracks returns.

Emails can involve efforts such as requesting the departments put individual W-2s and an earnings summary of all W-2s in a PDF for a review. Sometimes the scammers request an updated list of all employee information.