Chinese cyber-spies reportedly targeted sanctions intel in US Treasury raid
Chinese spies who compromised the US Treasury Department's workstations reportedly stole data belonging to a government office responsible for sanctions against organizations and individuals.
On Monday, the Treasury sent a letter to Congress disclosing the cyberattack. Days later, we learned Beijing's snoops specifically targeted the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers economic and trade sanctions, as well as the Office of the Treasury Secretary, according to a Washington Post report.
The security breach indicates the measures China is taking to gather intelligence on America and Uncle Sam in general, and particularly those related to Chinese entities that may soon face sanctions, the WaPo noted, citing anonymous US officials.
The December 30 letter that the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Management Aditi Hardikar sent to US lawmakers blamed the intrusion on an earlier BeyondTrust security incident in which miscreants snatched an API key for the software maker's Remote Support SaaS product. This allowed the key's thieves to remotely access some Treasury office workstations and "certain, unclassified documents" maintained by those users.
