tech and fintech

how tax practitioners became cybersecurity risks

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tax professionals are a hacker’s dream.  

by donny shimamoto, cpa, citp, cgma
on cybersecurity for accountants
center for accounting transformation

in 2015 the u.s. internal revenue service (irs) held its first security summit[i]. by creating a public-private partnership via the summit, the irs is seeking to protect more taxpayers and more tax dollars from tax-related identity theft.

more: how hacker-proof is your firm? | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | ai, ocr, nlp & cpas: oh my!   |  accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | early adopters gain an edge in audit | dustin wheeler: for serious cas success, hire tech teams | csr for cpas: the missing ingredient | donny shimamoto explains how ‘agile’ applies to cpa firms |  staff retention for remote workers | why the future is in risk advisory |  ready for non-cpa “cpa” firms?
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partners in the summit included the irs, state tax agencies and the private sector tax industry—for example, financial institutions, cybersecurity practitioners and tax practitioners.

the summit brought together people from the full value chain of tax compliance. taxpayers submit information to tax practitioners, who prepare the returns and submit them to the tax authorities.

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yes, ai writes better emails

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email taming and tracking tools with ai-powered writing help are here.

by beth ziesenis
app of the week

have you ever re-read a sent email and cringed because it came off snippy? sometimes, we lose perspective when we’re plowing through the day’s inbox.

more apps of the week:  automate captions for videos | can’t read it now? save it for later | don’t lose precious memories: digitize old photos | track your mileage automatically | keep track of your subscriptions | capture testimonials to increase credibility | find an extra set of hands for time-consuming tasks | personalize communication and set yourself apart from competition | waiting to exhale (i.e., can april 19 hurry up?) |
see all: apps of the week here |
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business etiquette, often labeled a “soft skill,” can be less hard using advances in ai technology.

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why the u.s. must act now to protect our online privacy

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lawmakers need to step up. don’t expect big tech to help.

by jonathan baron

i’m thankful for the european union. they watch out with much more diligence to protect privacy and do so with an eye to cybersecurity as well. but at least our regulators in the u.s. are fairly good, but slow, followers.

more cybersecurity: top tax vendors caught red-handed selling private taxpayer data | how hacker-proof is your firm? | it takes a village to stop cybercrime | one-third of cyber attacks involve small businesses | cyber insurance costs rise in health care as attacks soar | the why, what and how of cybersecurity for accountants | when cyber-crime hits close to home | cybersecurity for tax professionals |

more jon baron: top tax vendors caught red-handed selling private taxpayer data | client accounting services poised to surge in post-corona world | tax pros retake market share from diyers | three new technologies that will change everything [video] | economic mega-trends [video] | today’s best opportunities for accounting firms [video] | re-invest in your firm or get out? [video] |  when tax work dies [video] |  the big shift and the shakeout [video] | why the u.s. lags the world in tax tech [video]

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i was reminded of this because the other day, i received my quarterly report from deleteme, which i use to periodically clean up my data being bought and sold without my knowledge on the open market. since our last report, my wife and i have had over 20 new third parties needing cleanup. unbelievable.

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how hacker-proof is your firm?

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thieves always build a better mousetrap, so stay vigilant.

by donny shimamoto, cpa, citp, cgma
on cybersecurity for accountants

in 2018, fraudsters posed as tax authorities and state accounting and tax professional associations. these were simple phishing attacks trying to get tax practitioners’ email usernames and passwords, allowing fraudsters to obtain client contact information and perform email-based password resets for other systems.

more:  future firm growth requires a mindshift | ai, ocr, nlp & cpas: oh my!   |  accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | early adopters gain an edge in audit | dustin wheeler: for serious cas success, hire tech teams | csr for cpas: the missing ingredient | donny shimamoto explains how ‘agile’ applies to cpa firms |  staff retention for remote workers | why the future is in risk advisory |  ready for non-cpa “cpa” firms?
goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

the irs reported seeing threats specifically targeting preparers in illinois, iowa, new jersey and north carolina. additionally, the irs received reports tied to a canadian accounting association.[i]

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bluetooth getting its biggest update in years

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wireless is working toward more wonderful.

by rick richardson
technology this week

listen up if you want your headphones and speakers to produce better sound: bluetooth bandwidth will double within the next few years, according to the bluetooth special interest group (sig).

more: chatgpt passes cpa exam on second try | smartwatch saves two lives | chatgpt unlikely to replace accountants | looking for investments? check out smart home technology | solar sensors detect wildfires early, saving lives, money
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in a briefing held via vimeo, the sig stated it intends to increase the wireless transmission protocol’s current capacity from about “4mbps to 6mbps – maybe up to 8mbps” and would begin investigating the 6ghz frequency range to enable speedier transmission.
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make marketing more manageable

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get the world’s best graphic template tools to create compelling designs.

by beth ziesenis
app of the week

most of us small business folks these days have to do our own marketing… and accounting…and dishwashing…

we’re responsible for a lot!

more apps of the week:  automate captions for videos | can’t read it now? save it for later | don’t lose precious memories: digitize old photos | track your mileage automatically | keep track of your subscriptions | capture testimonials to increase credibility | find an extra set of hands for time-consuming tasks | personalize communication and set yourself apart from competition | waiting to exhale (i.e., can april 19 hurry up?) |
see all: apps of the week here |
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

when it comes to graphic design tools and templates, there are numerous options with hundreds of benefits. however, one platform stands above all the others, in my opinion.

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it takes a village to stop cybercrime

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we’re all in this together.//m.g005e.com/2021/11/09/russian-solarwinds-hackers-at-it-again/

by donny shimamoto, cpa, citp, cgma
on cybersecurity for accountants
center for accounting transformation

i’ve been warning accountants about the treasure trove of taxpayer information they are entrusted with since 2014. that was the first year i spoke at an aicpa conference about it risk management and the need to self-assess information security risks. every year since then, via numerous conference sessions and webinars, i’ve taught both non-techie accountants and it professionals about the cybersecurity jargon, key threats, how to understand the risks, and how various types of administrative and technical controls help mitigate those risks.

more:  donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | ai, ocr, nlp & cpas: oh my!   |  accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | early adopters gain an edge in audit | dustin wheeler: for serious cas success, hire tech teams | csr for cpas: the missing ingredient | donny shimamoto explains how ‘agile’ applies to cpa firms |  staff retention for remote workers | why the future is in risk advisory |  ready for non-cpa “cpa” firms?
goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

as quickly as cybersecurity practices mature, new threats, threat delivery vectors and other schemes arise. what many people don’t realize is that identity theft is a lucrative business. whether taxpayer identification (e.g., social security numbers), bank account information, credit card information or healthcare information—these records have value on the dark web. fraudsters will pay handsomely for this type of information.

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ai systems just for accounting in development

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artist concept of an ai-based neuronwhat will bloomberg’s gpt ai built for finance mean for accountants?

by hitendra patil
rise of the aiccountants

bloomberg released a research paper detailing the development of bloomberggpt, a new large-scale generative artificial intelligence (ai) specifically trained on a wide range of financial data to support diverse natural language processing (nlp) tasks within the financial industry.

more: three ways a.i. will take shape in accounting | four ways to prepare for the ai era | seven ways ai could change accounting | who is better at accounting, ai or humans? | talent shortage: ai neither the cause nor the remedy | accounting profession to experience highest ai impact
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according to bloomberg, “the team pulled from this extensive archive of financial data to create a comprehensive 363 billion token dataset consisting of english financial documents. this data was augmented with a 345 billion token public dataset to create a large training corpus with over 700 billion tokens. using a portion of this training corpus, the team trained a 50-billion parameter decoder-only causal language model.”
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chatgpt passes cpa exam on second try

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its average score was 85.1.

by rick richardson
technology this week

an improved and better-trained version of chatgpt took a simulated cpa test after an earlier failure and passed, similar to the roughly half of human applicants who fail on their first attempt. but does this trial suggest that chatgpt will soon compete for accounting positions?

more: smartwatch saves two lives | first e-road charges electric vehicles as they drive | stanford scientists 3d-print heart tissue | chatgpt unlikely to replace accountants | cancer vaccine available by 2030? | four of today’s new technologies that will be tomorrow’s ‘norm’ | chatgpt spurs competition in different ways | chatgpt: what it is. why you need to know.
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“this calls into question the ‘competitive advantage’ of the human accountant relative to the machine. to our knowledge, for the first time, ai has performed as well as most human accountants on a real-world accounting task. this raises important questions of how machines and accountants will work together in the future,” the study’s authors said.
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smartwatch saves two lives

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a watch that can detect trauma could get er help asap.

by rick richardson
technology this week

the health functions of the apple watch are in the news again and are said to have saved at least two lives – one in minnesota and one in ohio. the feature taking the spotlight was fall detection.

more: first e-road charges electric vehicles as they drive | stanford scientists 3d-print heart tissue | four of today’s new technologies that will be tomorrow’s ‘norm’ | cyber insurance costs rise in health care as attacks soar | phishing attack hackers have a new trick
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

apple watch user michael brodkorb was struck by a car in minnesota before it fled the scene. when he could not react, his apple watch used fall detection to identify the impact and called 911. “i was just shocked,” he said. “i mean, just the sheer force of what it’s like to get hit by a vehicle.”
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first e-road charges electric vehicles as they drive

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electrified roads could cut heavy-duty vehicle emissions in one country by 1.2 million tonnes by 2030.

by rick richardson
technology this week

as europe attempts to transition away from fossil fuel, sweden is working on the first permanent electric road in the world, which will allow electric cars and trucks to charge while traveling.

more: stanford scientists 3d-print heart tissue | chatgpt unlikely to replace accountants | looking for investments? check out smart home technology | solar sensors detect wildfires early, saving lives, money | the top hotspot router – and why you need it
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

the e20 motorway has been chosen for the project by trafikverket, the swedish transport administration. in particular, it will construct the electric road system (ers) along the 21-kilometer route between hallsberg and rebro, which is part of the route between sweden’s two largest cities, stockholm and gothenburg.

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stanford scientists 3d-print heart tissue

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will human organ transplants be a thing of the past?

by rick richardson
technology this week

the way we construct homes cars, and even food is changing, thanks to 3d printers. they may alter how transplant patients receive new organs in part because of researchers at stanford university. their innovative method might eventually enable the printing of organs from the patient’s own cells on demand.

more: chatgpt unlikely to replace accountants | cancer vaccine available by 2030? | four of today’s new technologies that will be tomorrow’s ‘norm’ | looking for investments? check out smart home technology | 4 new tech trends to watch | cyber insurance costs rise in health care as attacks soar | solar sensors detect wildfires early, saving lives, money | adobe announces “creator-friendly” generative ai tools | phishing attack hackers have a new trick | the top hotspot router – and why you need it | satellite sos services coming to android users | chatgpt spurs competition in different ways | chatgpt: what it is. why you need to know.
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

bioengineers mark skylar-scott and his group have created a method that enables them to 3d-print living heart tissue. one day, they hope to print vital components of the heart, such as valves and ventricles, that would really develop with the patient.
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can better tech attract personnel?

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six ways work becomes more engaging with the right tools.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

one of the accounting industry’s most persistent and worsening problems is the difficulty in hiring and retaining professionals. according to the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 business barometer, 48 percent cite staffing as a critically problematic issue.

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the pipeline is part of the problem. the supply of graduates with majors in accountancy has been dropping since 2015.

accounting firms can’t do much about the dwindling supply of professionals, but they can take action to attract those who are new to the trade.
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