US Treasury Hacked: China has directly tried to lay its hands on the US treasury. This shocking fact has come to light in the information given by US officials. According to US officials, at the behest of China, hackers broke into the US Treasury Department’s system this month and gained access to the workstations and unclassified documents of some employees. The Treasury Department called this incident a “major cyber attack” and informed the lawmakers about this incident through a letter. The department said that it is investigating this attack in collaboration with the FBI and other agencies.
China called these allegations “baseless” and said that it does not support any kind of hacking. America has recently accused China of many such high profile attacks and this alleged attack is the latest part of this series.
What is the matter?
The US Treasury Department said in its letter that this attack was carried out by China-based Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) hackers. According to the department, they use the services provided by a third party and the Chinese hackers entered the system by breaking into this third party service. The third party whose service the US Treasury Department takes is named ‘BeyondTrust’. Its job is to provide technical support to the department’s employees at a remote level. This third-party service has now been taken offline. The department said that at present there is no evidence that the hackers have accessed any data after the incident.
How did the attack happen?
December 2: BeyondTrust detected suspicious activity.
December 5: It was confirmed that it was a cyber attack.
December 8: The Treasury Department was informed about the incident.
Hackers accessed the workstations of Treasury officials/employees and some unclassified documents through remote access. However, information about the nature or sensitivity of these documents has not been given.
China’s response
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning dismissed the allegations as “groundless”. She said, “China opposes all forms of hacking and refutes the lies being spread for political purposes.”
Such allegations have been made earlier as well
Volt Typhoon: US agencies allege that this Chinese hacker group was planning to disrupt critical infrastructure.
Salt Typhoon: It was blamed for espionage, which included attacks on telecom companies.
The US Treasury Department said that a detailed report on this incident would be submitted to lawmakers in 30 days. However, Chinese officials have described it as “false propaganda” by the US.
US-China tensions rise
Tensions between the US and China are rising over cyber security issues. US agencies have warned that such attacks may continue in the future.
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