WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese language hackers remotely accessed a number of U.S. Treasury Division workstations and unclassified paperwork after compromising a third-party software program service supplier, the company mentioned Monday.
The division didn’t present particulars on what number of workstations had been accessed or what kind of paperwork the hackers might have obtained, however it mentioned in a letter to lawmakers revealing the breach that “at this time there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury information.”
“Treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems, and the data it holds,” the division mentioned. “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 division mentioned it realized of the issue on Dec. 8 when a third-party software program service supplier, BeyondTrust, flagged that hackers had stolen a key utilized by the seller that helped it override the system and achieve distant entry to a number of worker workstations.
The compromised service has since been taken offline, and there’s no proof that the hackers nonetheless have entry to division data, Aditi Hardikar, an assistant Treasury secretary, mentioned within the letter Monday to leaders of the Senate Banking Committee.
The division mentioned it was working with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, and that the hack had been attributed to Chinese language culprits. It didn’t elaborate.