BEVERLY HILLS, December 23, (THEWILL) – Hackers broke into systems used by top US Treasury officials during a massive cyber attack on government agencies and may have stolen essential encryption keys, a Senior lawmaker, Ron Wyden, alerted.
Senator Wyden, who sits on both the Senate Intelligence and Finance Committees, said after a closed-door briefing that the hack at the US Treasury Department “appears to be significant.”
Dozens of email accounts were compromised. Additionally, the hackers broke into systems in the Departmental Offices division of Treasury, home to the department’s highest-ranking officials.
“Treasury still does not know all of the actions taken by hackers, or precisely what information was stolen”, Wyden said in a statement.
While the Internal Revenue Service said there was no evidence that they had been compromised or data on taxpayers taken, Wyden criticized the government for not taking stronger measures to protect its systems.
The Government “has now suffered a breach that seems to involve skilled hackers stealing encryption keys from (government) servers. That has happened despite years of government officials advocating for encryption backdoors, and ignoring warnings from cybersecurity experts who said that encryption keys become irresistible targets for hackers”, he said
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency characterized the hack as “sophisticated” and said removing the “threat actor” from the compromised systems would be a challenge.
On its part, the US government admitted that computer systems in multiple departments were penetrated by attackers who hacked in through widely used security software made by the US company SolarWinds.
Officials have said the hackers broke into computers at the State Department, Commerce Department, Treasury, Homeland Security Department, and the National Institutes of Health.
But experts have said they fear far more of the government could be affected, including US intelligence bodies, given the ubiquitousness of the SolarWinds security software
Members of Congress briefed by US intelligence, as well as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Bill Barr, have all said Russians were behind the hack.
However, President Donald Trump has avoided pointing fingers at Moscow and insisted that, “everything is well under control.”
President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Pentagon was not briefing his team on the issue.
“It is a grave risk, and it continues. I’ve seen no evidence that it is under control,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, of the sweeping cyberattack that has affected a number of Federal Government departments and agencies.
Biden criticized Trump’s response to the hack, saying that; “this president hasn’t even identified who is responsible.” He said the hack occurred while the president was not paying attention.
“When I learn the extent of the damage and, in fact, who is responsible, they can be assured that we will respond”, the president-elect, who said the attack was consistent with Russia’s usual pattern of behavior, added.
“There are many options, which I will not discuss now. … I promise you, there will be a response. Even if he does not take it seriously, I will”, he said.
Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon legal advisor, tweeted Tuesday that not briefing the incoming administration on this threat “compromises US national security” and was likely a “violation of at least the spirit of the Presidential Transition Act.”
