Hackers might have stolen IRS data on more than 300,000 households

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.