The Scoop
A leading Congressional Democrat is demanding a briefing from the US Treasury Department about a cybersecurity breach that is said to have affected the agency’s sanctions office.
In a letter sent Monday and shared first with Semafor, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the House select committee on China, raised concerns about the breach to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and asked for a meeting to discuss the situation by Jan. 15.
A Treasury official told Semafor that the agency has already offered briefings to Congress.
“Even unclassified information could reveal a great deal about forthcoming Treasury actions that utilize our nation’s economic toolkit,” Krishnamoorthi wrote in the letter. The national security implications of China-related breaches, he added, remain “devastating.”
“It is imperative that Treasury redouble its efforts to protect its data and systems to prevent any future incidents,” he wrote.
Know More
The Treasury disclosed the breach in a letter to Congress last month, saying that hackers sponsored by China gained access in December to the department’s systems through a third-party provider called BeyondTrust. The breach impacted the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control as well as the Office of the Treasury Secretary, The Washington Post reported.
Notable
- US officials have raised alarm about a separate China-related breach, this time impacting US telecommunications firms.
- Cybersecurity officials advised politicians to avoid regular phone calls and text messages and to rely on only end-to-end encrypted communications in the wake of the telecom breach.