US Treasury admits it suffered serious breach during cyber attack

WASHINGTON • Hackers broke into systems used by top Treasury officials during a massive cyber attack on US government agencies and may have stolen essential encryption keys, according to a senior lawmaker.

In a statement after a briefing on Monday for committee staff members, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said the Treasury Department had acknowledged that it "suffered a serious breach, beginning in July, the full depth of which isn't known".

Mr Wyden, who sits on both the Senate Intelligence and Finance committees, said after the closed-door briefing that the hack at the Treasury Department "appears to be significant".

Dozens of e-mail accounts were compromised, he said in a statement. "Additionally, the hackers broke into systems in the departmental offices division of Treasury, home to the department's highest-ranking officials," he said.

"Treasury still does not know all of the actions taken by hackers, or precisely what information was stolen," he added.

Mr Wyden and Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley had asked to meet Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials after the discovery of the data breach affecting multiple agency systems.

Microsoft told the Treasury Department that dozens of e-mail accounts were compromised, the statement said.

Mr Wyden added that the IRS had said there was no evidence it had been compromised or data on taxpayers taken.

Attorney-General William Barr on Monday joined other administration officials, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, in pointing at Russia for being behind the hack.

"It certainly appears to be the Russians, but I'm not going to discuss it beyond that," Mr Barr, whose last day in office is today, said, contradicting President Donald Trump who suggested China may have been responsible.

It has been reported that the hackers had installed a malicious vulnerability in software from Texas-based SolarWinds, whose customers include top government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

All federal civilian agencies were ordered by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to review their networks and disconnect or power down SolarWinds's Orion software products immediately.

Mr Wyden sharply criticised the government for not taking stronger measures to protect its systems. The attack happened despite "years of government officials advocating for encryption backdoors" with the government "ignoring warnings from cyber security experts who said that encryption keys (have) become irresistible targets for hackers".

Experts say they fear far more of the government could be affected, including US intelligence bodies, given the ubiquity of the SolarWinds security software.

NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE