Washington: In a major cybersecurity breach, Chinese hackers have remotely accessed several workstations and unclassified documents of the US Treasury Department. The breach occurred after the hackers compromised a third-party service provider, BeyondTrust, which had access to a cloud-based technical support service used by the department.
Though the Treasury Department did not disclose the exact number of workstations affected or the specific documents that were accessed, it confirmed that the breach was being treated as a serious cybersecurity incident. The department reassured lawmakers in a letter that, as of now, there is no evidence suggesting that the hackers still have access to Treasury systems or information.
“Treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems, and the data it holds,” a department spokesperson said in a separate statement. “Over the last four years, Treasury has significantly bolstered its cyber defense, and we will continue to work with both private and public sector partners to protect our financial system from threat actors.”
The hack was discovered on December 8, when BeyondTrust, the external vendor, alerted the department about a stolen security key. This key was critical to secure remote access for providing technical support to employees. Using this key, the hackers were able to bypass security measures and gain remote control of the workstations.
This incident comes at a time when US officials are already dealing with the fallout of a widespread Chinese cyber espionage campaign, known as Salt Typhoon, which had already compromised private communications of several Americans. According to recent reports, the number of telecom companies affected by the cyberattack has now reached nine.
The investigation into this breach is ongoing, and US authorities are working to understand the full scale of the attack and any potential damage caused by the unauthorized access.
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