The agency says China hacked the US Treasury Department to access workstations and documents

Chinese hackers remotely gained access to several U.S. Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents after hacking a third-party software service provider, the agency said Monday.

The department did not provide details on how many workstations were accessed or what type of documents the hackers may have obtained, but it said in a letter to lawmakers revealing the hack that “at this time there is no evidence to suggest a continuing threat actor.” Access to treasury information.”

“Treasury takes seriously all threats against our systems and the data they hold,” the department said.

“Over the past four years, Treasury has significantly strengthened its cyber defense, and we will continue to work with public and private sector partners to protect our financial system from threat actors.”

The letter described the hack as a “major incident.”

The department said it became aware of the issue on December 8 when a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, reported that hackers had stolen a key used by the vendor that helped it bypass the system and remotely access several employee workstations.

The hacked service has since been shut down, and there is no evidence that the hackers are still able to access the department’s information, Assistant Treasury Secretary Aditi Hardikar said in the letter Monday to leaders of the Senate Banking Committee.

The department said it was working with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and that the hack was attributed to Chinese perpetrators.

He did not explain that.