Dozens of email accounts within the US Treasury have been compromised by the massive cyber espionage operation that has targeted the United States in recent months, and hackers may have stolen critical encryption keys, a Senator Ron Wyden declared Monday, December 21.
The Democrat, who sits on both the Senate Intelligence and Finance Committee, assured, after a closed-door briefing held by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, the US tax authorities) and the Treasury Department, that hacking at the department “Seems important”:
“The hackers broke into systems in the division of department heads, which hosts the most senior managers (…). The Treasury is still unaware of any actions committed by the hackers or what specific information was stolen. “
“Blind Russophobia”
The US government admitted last week that a massive cyberattack had targeted US government agencies. Several senior officials, including Justice Minister Bill Barr and Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo blamed Moscow, which strongly denied.
“All the accusations of Russian involvement are absolutely unfounded and are part of the continuity of blind Russophobia, which we see in every incident”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lamented on Monday.
The attack began in March, with hackers taking advantage of an update to monitoring software developed by a Texas company, SolarWinds, used by tens of thousands of businesses and governments around the world.
Among the victims of these attacks are the Treasury, therefore, but also the State Department, Commerce, Homeland Security and National Institutes of Health, according to officials, who however say they fear that many others will. are also.
The internal tax department did not see any signs that it was affected or that taxpayer data was stolen, according to Wyden. The senator sharply criticized the government for its lack of preparation for the threat.
This last “Suffered an attack which appears to involve clever hackers, who stole encryption keys from servers” government, notes the senator. This happened despite warnings from cybersecurity experts that encryption keys constitute “Irresistible targets for pirates”, he lamented. “The Treasury still does not know all the actions taken by the hackers, nor what information was precisely stolen”, finally specified Mr. Wyden.
