(Bloomberg) — Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the computers of senior US Treasury Department leaders as part of a recent breach of the agency, according to a US official and another person familiar with the matter.
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The hackers were able to access unclassified material stored locally on the senior officials’ computers, which were among the laptops and desktops that were infiltrated, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the investigation is ongoing. They didn’t specify which senior leaders’ computers were breached.
Investigators have so far found roughly 100 government computers that were compromised, according to the US official, who added that the hackers accessed drafts and notes for policy decisions, itineraries and travel planning documents for Treasury leaders, as well as some internal communications. The agency is still assessing what was taken, but the hackers didn’t compromise the department’s email system or classified systems, according to both people.
These details of the breach, which haven’t been previously reported, offer a fuller view of what US officials have said was a foreign rival’s intrusion into an agency central to managing the national debt, issuing sanctions and shaping US economic policy.
Chinese officials have long denied US allegations of state-sponsored cyberattacks, and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson this week called the claims that it’s behind the Treasury hack “unwarranted and groundless.”
Treasury spokesperson Lily Adams declined to comment on Thursday. In a Dec. 30 letter to Congress reviewed by Bloomberg News, the agency characterized the breach as a “major cybersecurity incident” and said the hackers got in through through a software provider, BeyondTrust Inc. The Georgia-based company sells managed access software and other cybersecurity products.
A Treasury spokesperson previously said the compromised BeyondTrust service had been taken offline, and that there’s no evidence the hackers continue to have access to the department’s information.
The hackers breached the Office of the Treasury Secretary and the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers economic sanctions, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Information about the Treasury’s sanctions deliberations would have been of high interest to the Chinese government in the past year. While visiting Beijing in April, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made clear to her counterparts that Washington would act to sanction Chinese financial firms if they were found financing trade with Russia that bolstered Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
