US government hack compromised dozens of treasury email accounts, senator says

Dozens of email accounts at the treasury department were compromised in a massive breach of US government agencies being blamed on Russia, with hackers breaking into systems used by the department’s highest-ranking officials, a senator said Monday after being briefed on the matter.

Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, provided new details of the hack following a briefing to the Senate finance committee by the IRS and treasury department.

Wyden said that though there was no indication that taxpayer data was compromised, the hack “appears to be significant”, including through the compromise of dozens of email accounts and access to the departmental offices division of the treasury department, which the senator said was home to its highest-ranking officials. In addition, the breach appeared to involve the theft of encryption keys, Wyden said.

“Treasury still does not know all of the actions taken by hackers, or precisely what information was stolen,” Wyden said in a statement.

It is also not clear what Russian hackers intend to do with any emails they may have accessed.

A treasury department spokeswoman declined to comment on Wyden’s statement.
The treasury was among the earliest known agencies reported to have been affected in a breach that now encompasses a broad spectrum of departments.

The effects and consequences of the hack are still being assessed, though the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm said in a statement that the intrusion posed a “grave” risk to government and private networks.

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In the treasury department’s case, Wyden said, the breach began in July. But experts believe the overall hacking operation began months earlier when malicious code was slipped into updates to popular software that monitors computer networks of businesses and governments. The malware, affecting a product made by the US company SolarWinds, gave elite hackers remote access into an organization’s networks so they could steal information.

It wasn’t discovered until the prominent cybersecurity company FireEye determined it had been hacked.

Microsoft, which has helped respond to the breach, revealed last week that it had identified more than 40 government agencies, thinktanks, nongovernmental organizations and IT companies infiltrated by the hackers. Microsoft notified the treasury department that dozens of email accounts were compromised.

Donald Trump sought to downplay the severity of the hack last week, tweeting without evidence that perhaps China was responsible. Both the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the attorney general, William Barr, have stated publicly that they believe Russia was responsible, the consensus of others in the US government and of the cybersecurity community. Russia has denied involvement.