The enemies of the United States are running on all cylinders. And they’ve finally made a breakthrough.
Now this foreign infiltration of a U.S. government agency has Americans worried sick.
A Chinese state-backed cyber actor breached U.S. Treasury Department systems earlier this month, gaining access to “unclassified” documents through a cloud service intrusion, officials revealed to a Senate committee.
The hackers exploited a vulnerability in a third-party security system, BeyondTrust, which detected the breach on Dec. 8 and alerted the Treasury Department.
In response, the Treasury took the compromised service offline.
“There is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury systems or information,” a Treasury spokesperson told the New York Post.
“Treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems, and the data it holds.”
The spokesperson emphasized that the Treasury has “significantly bolstered its cyber defense” over the past four years and vowed to continue collaborating with private and public partners to safeguard the nation’s financial systems from cyber threats.
On Monday, Treasury officials briefed the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs about the breach, according to a letter reviewed by the New York Post.
BeyondTrust’s alert revealed that the attackers had acquired a key allowing them to remotely access the cloud service.
Once inside, the hackers bypassed security measures to access materials from Treasury workstations.
The Treasury Department is now working closely with the FBI, the Intelligence Community, third-party forensic experts, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to investigate and mitigate the breach.
This intrusion comes amid escalating concerns about Chinese hacking activities, particularly from the group known as Salt Typhoon.
This group was implicated earlier this year in a widespread telecommunications hack that reportedly allowed Beijing to access communications involving President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and other officials.
China’s track record of targeting U.S. government systems is well-documented.
Last year, Microsoft disclosed that a “China-based actor” had compromised accounts belonging to over two dozen organizations, including the State and Commerce Departments.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who traveled to Beijing last year, faced criticism for bowing to her Chinese counterpart during diplomatic talks—a gesture seen by many as emblematic of the Biden administration’s attempts to repair strained U.S.-China relations. Yellen visited China again in April of this year.
With President-elect Trump set to take office, trade tensions between the U.S. and China are expected to escalate.
The New York Post has reached out to representatives for BeyondTrust and the Chinese embassy in the U.S. for comment.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
