US Treasury hit by cyberattack, Chinese-backed hackers breach systems

The U.S. Treasury Department was hacked by a group linked to China through a third-party software company. This was called a "big cybersecurity problem" in a letter sent to Congress. The Treasury was told about the attack on December 8. The hacker was able to get access to a special key that was used to protect cloud services for the Treasury Department.

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The Treasury is getting help from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, and other experts to investigate. The letter mentioned that the hackers were very skilled and linked to China.

The Chinese embassy in Washington disagreed with these claims. They said the U.S. was wrongly blaming China for the cyberattacks.

The company, BeyondTrust, which provides security services to the Treasury, works with many U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. BeyondTrust confirmed that only a few of its customers were affected and that it was helping them. They also said they contacted the police and were working with investigators.

The hackers were able to get into some Treasury computers and look at some unclassified documents. But the service that was hacked has now been shut down, and there is no proof that the hackers still have access to the Treasury's systems.

This breach comes after reports about another cyberattack  China, which targeted U.S. phone companies. A group called Salt Typhoon spent months inside U.S. telecom networks, spying on phone calls and text messages. They even targeted people like former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign staff.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in November and talked about the attacks. Biden expressed concern, but Xi denied any involvement by China in these cyberattacks.

The U.S. has already taken steps, like banning China Telecom from working in the U.S. More actions may come as the investigation continues.