US Treasury breached by state-sponsored Chinese hackers
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The news: The US Treasury Department has told lawmakers it was breached by Chinese state-sponsored hackers in a “major” cybersecurity incident.
The context: External vendor BeyondTrust informed Treasury on December 8 of the breach. The hackers had managed to get an online key used to provide remote cloud-based technical support to Treasury staff.
A letter obtained by Politico, sent to Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown and ranking Republican Senator Tim Scott, noted that the hackers had managed to override security systems, remotely access Treasury workstations and access some unclassified documents.
What they said: "Once Treasury was alerted by the service provider, we immediately contacted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and have worked with law enforcement partners across the government to ascertain the impact of this incident,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
“The compromised BeyondTrust service has been taken offline and there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury systems or information.”
The source: Politico
