China denies role in cyber attack on the U.S. Treasury Department

China has strongly refuted allegations that a Chinese state-sponsored hacker was responsible for the cyber attack on the U.S. treasury department in December, calling these claims “groundless”.

 

Last month, Aditi Hardikar, Assistant Secretary for Management at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said that December 8, the department was notified about a data security incident by one of its third-party software service providers, BeyondTrust.

 

According to BeyondTrust, an unauthorised party gained access to a key used by the company to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices end users.

Using the stolen key, the unauthorised party was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by the Treasury.

 

The Department of the Treasury said it worked with external cyber security experts along with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Intelligence Community to determine the overall impact of the incident.

 

“CISA was engaged immediately upon Treasury’s knowledge of the attack, and the remaining governing bodies were contacted as soon as the scope of the attack became evident.

 

“Based on available indicators, the incident has been attributed to a China state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor,” the department said.

 

Recently, the Chinese government denied claims of directing or supporting the cyber attack on the Treasury, stating that it did not have any connection with the hackers who carried out the attack. 

 

The Chinese foreign ministry said that Beijing “has always opposed all forms of hacker attacks, and we are even more opposed to the spread of false information against China for political purposes”.

 

“We have stated our position many times regarding such groundless accusations that lack evidence,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning added.