U.S. Treasury says its computers were hacked by a Chinese ‘threat actor’ in a ‘major incident’
The department stated that the “threat agent” gained access to the workstations through a compromised third party cybersecurity service provider, BeyondTrust.
The U.S. Treasury Department has said that a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group was able access third-party computer software in order to monitor desktop computers of Treasury staffers. This is what the Department calls “a major event.”
Aditi Hardikar wrote in a letter that the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s assistant secretary for Management, Aditi, was notified of the breach on December 8, according to NBC News. The letter was addressed to Senators Sherrod Brown, D. Ohio, and Tim Scott, R. South Carolina, who are the Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, for the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
According to the letter, the information accessed by “threat actors” included unclassified files.
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China denies the U.S. accusations
At a daily press briefing, Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters that “China is against all forms of hacking” and strongly opposed to spreading false information about China with political motives.
Hardikar reported that “a third party software service provider BeyondTrust” informed the U.S. Treasury that a threat agent had gained access to the key used by BeyondTrust to secure a cloud service that was used to provide remote technical support to Treasury Departmental Offices end users.
The “threat-actor” could bypass certain security measures to gain access to the user workstations of the department.
In the letter, it is stated that the U.S. Treasury worked with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and members of the Intelligence Community, as well “as third-party forensic researchers to fully characterize and determine the incident’s overall impact.”
China denies the U.S. accusations
At a daily press briefing, Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters that “China is against all forms of hacking” and strongly opposed to spreading false information about China with political motives.
A Treasury spokesperson told NBC News that the Hardikar Letter was cited in a statement, stating that the “compromised BeyondTrust service” had been taken off-line and that “there is no evidence that the threat actor continues to have access to Treasury information or systems.”
Treasury takes all threats to our systems and data very seriously. Treasury has significantly strengthened its cyber defense over the past four years. We will continue to work both with private and public sector to protect our financial systems from threat actors,” reads part of the statement.
According to the letter, other agencies helped U.S. Treasury determine that the breach was caused by Chinese hackers.
In the letter, it is stated that a report supplemental will be available within 30 days.
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