TAIPEI, Taiwan – The cybersecurity breach of the U.S. Treasury Department by China-backed hackers is “extremely concerning,” said senior American lawmakers, urging Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to provide them with a detailed briefing on the matter.
The department announced on Monday that China-backed hackers in December accessed workstations and unclassified documents through a compromised third-party software provider. It reported, however, having “no evidence” the hackers were still able to access the information.
“This breach of federal government information is extremely concerning,” Sen. Tim Scott, a ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, and House Financial Services Committee Vice Chair French Hill said in a letter to Yellen.
“This information must be vigilantly protected from theft or surveillance by our foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, who seek to harm the United States,” they wrote, requesting a briefing on the breach in eight days with full detail on the information accessed by the hackers
The department said it was working with cybersecurity experts, the FBI, intelligence agencies and independent investigators to understand the incident and assess its impact.
It did not specify what documents had been accessed, but said the service from the affected third-party software provider had been shut down, and so far, there was no evidence that the hackers still had access to Treasury information.
The department did not respond to RFA’s request for comment by time of publication.
China’s ministry of foreign ministry called the U.S. accusation of Chinese involvement in the hack “groundless.”
“On this kind of unwarranted and groundless allegations, we’ve made clear our position more than once,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday.
“China opposes all forms of hacking, and in particular, we oppose spreading China-related disinformation motivated by political agenda,” she added.
In November, The New York Times reported that a Chinese hacking group known as Salt Typhoon had been embedded in the systems of one of America’s largest telecommunications companies for over a year.
Salt Typhoon, which reportedly has strong ties to China’s Ministry of State Security, targeted phones belonging to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.
This effort was part of a broader intelligence-gathering campaign that also targeted Democrats, including staff from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
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The newspaper cited U.S.officials as saying that although the Chinese hackers appeared to stop their activities after the breach was exposed, it would be premature to assume they had been fully removed from the nation’s telecommunications system.
In December, the Treasury Department offered a US$10 million reward for information about a Chinese company and employee it accuses of violating the firewalls of 80,000 computer networks worldwide, including for 36 items of “critical infrastructure” in America.
Edited by Taejun Kang.