Chinese state-sponsored hackers have breached the U.S. Treasury Department’s computer security guardrails and stole documents in what the Treasury called a major incident, a letter to lawmakers provided on Monday revealed.
The hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said.
According to the letter, hackers “gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users.
“With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users.”
The Treasury Department said it was alerted to the breach by BeyondTrust on Dec. 8 and that it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to assess the hack’s impact.
The Treasury officials however didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking further details about the hack.
Meanwhile, China denied any involvement, calling the accusation “baseless” and saying it “consistently opposes all forms of hacking”.
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