USA – Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the US Treasury Department’s systems earlier this month and were able to access employee workstations and some unclassified documents, American officials have said. The Treasury Department deemed the breach a “major incident” after disclosing it via a letter notifying lawmakers to the incident.

The US agency said it had been working with the FBI and other agencies to investigate the impact of the hack. China denied any involvement, calling the accusation “baseless” and saying it “consistently opposes all forms of hacking”.

It is the latest in a series of high-profile and embarrassing security breaches in the US being blamed on China. A hack of telecoms companies in December potentially accessed phone record data across large swathes of American society.

The Treasury Department said in its letter to lawmakers that this latest attack involved China-based actors overriding security via a key used by a third-party service provider. The application offers remote technical support to its employees. The compromised third-party service – called BeyondTrust – has since been taken offline, officials said. There was no evidence to suggest the hacker had continued to access to Treasury Department information since, the statement continued.

The department said it had been working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and third-party forensic investigators to determine the overall impact.  Officials said initial investigations suggested the hack appeared to have been carried out by “a China-based Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor”. (BBC)