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Shop NowThe U.S. Treasury Department reports that China broke into their systems in December. They were shocked to learn somebody was “able to access employee workstations and some unclassified documents.” The Chinese are furious about what they insist are false accusations. You can’t prove it was us, they counter. How do you know it wasn’t North Korea? Or the Ayatollah?
China denies hack attack
China is diplomatically upset. The U.S. Treasury Department might have a “major incident” on their hands but don’t point the finger in their direction, they say. Officials in charge of our money supply jumped to conclusions in “a letter notifying lawmakers to the incident.”
No matter who did it, and they still think it’s the Chinese, the Treasury is working with the FBI and other agencies “to investigate the impact of the hack.”
Meanwhile, Chinese diplomats are hopping mad. “China denied any involvement, calling the accusation ‘baseless‘ and saying it ‘consistently opposes all forms of hacking.‘” Everyone knows they do have hackers, though.
This is only the “latest in a series of high-profile and embarrassing security breaches in the U.S.” We’re blaming the Chinese for those, too.
The public already knew about the telecom industry breach where hackers “accessed phone record data across large swathes of American society.”
That one is so bad that the feds are warning corporate officials not to conduct sensitive business by phone or text. Not unless it’s reliably encrypted, end-to-end. China could certainly benefit from the information harvested in both critical incidents.
Third party key
Treasury officials aren’t happy to admit to congress how bad their security is. This latest attack blamed on China came from sophisticated hackers “overriding security via a key used by a third-party service provider.” BeyondTrust. Apparently they can’t be trusted.
The hackers tunneled into an application which “offers remote technical support to its employees.”
The good news, the Treasury Department writes, “there was no evidence to suggest the hacker had continued to access to Treasury Department information since” they took the vulnerability offline.
Whether China was behind it or not, the department is “working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and third-party forensic investigators to determine the overall impact.”
It seems that the Treasury Department first noticed suspicious activity on December 2. They weren’t even aware that it was a hack until December 8. As soon as they figured that out, they blamed China. They’re not happy that “the hackers may have been able to create accounts or change passwords” even while being watched by BeyondTrust.
“As espionage agents, the hackers are believed to have been seeking information, rather than attempting to steal funds.” According to a foreign ministry spokeswoman, “China consistently opposes all forms of hacking and firmly rejects the dissemination of false information targeting China for political purposes.“
