United States has said that a hacker sponsored by China got access to the US Treasury Department computer system. They also claimed that the hacker got into the workstation of an employee and stole some documents. The US described it as a major incident and said that they are investigating it with the FBI and other agencies to know the impact. In this article, we will get into the details of the hacking.
Hacking of the US Treasury Department
The breach occurred in early December as per the notification of the incident to the lawmakers. The hacking occurred through the access of a key of a cyber security provider and they have accessed unclassified documents.
The US treasury department claimed that the hackers accessed the key used by third-party cybersecurity, BeyondTrust that was used to secure cloud-based service. As the hackers got access to the key they were able to use workstations by the users and got some unclassified documents.
The treasury department was alerted by Georgia-based BeyondTrust about the hacking on December 8. The suspicious activity was spotted on December 2 and it took three more days for them to ensure that the US Treasury Department got hacked.
Aditi Hardikar, Assistant Secretary for Management at the US Treasury has stated that based on the available indicators Chinese state-sponsored Advance Persistent Threat actor is responsible for the incident. Another spokesperson from the US Treasury Department has stated that the hacker got remote access to the workstations by the users and some unclassified documents kept by them.
However, there is no evidence that the hack got access to the US Treasury Department continuously. The time and duration of the hacking is not specified by the US Treasury Department. The level of confidentiality of the computer systems is also not known.
The third-party cyber security provider Beyond Trust has stated that a limited number of customers were involved. They also said that they are supporting the investigation efforts.
Response from China on US Treasury Hacks
China has rejected the responsibility for the hacking attack on the US Treasury Department. China stated that the accusation was just a smear attack by the US. They also said that the accusation is made without any basis of facts. A spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in Washington has stated that they are opposing the smear attack by the US as it is without factual basis.
Conclusion
The US treasury department got hacked early in December. The hackers got access to some user workstations and some documents. However, the type of documents that got hacked is not known. The US accused China of the hacking attack. China has denied stating that the accusation is groundless and lacks evidence.
