Chinese hackers remotely accessed several US Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents after compromising a third-party software service provider, the agency said Monday.

The department did not provide details on how many workplaces were accessed or what types of documents the hackers may have obtained, but said in a letter to lawmakers disclosing the breach that “at this time, there is no evidence to suggest that the threat actor continued to : access to treasury information.

“Treasury takes all threats against our systems and the data it stores very seriously,” the agency said.

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

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

The agency said it became aware of the problem on Dec. 8 when third-party software services provider BeyondTrust said hackers had stolen a key used by a vendor that helped it take down the system and gain remote access to several employee accounts. jobs.

The compromised service has since been taken offline and there is no evidence the hackers still have access to the department's information, Assistant Treasury Secretary Aditi Hardikar said in a letter to Senate Banking Committee leaders on Monday.

The agency said it was cooperating with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and that the hack was attributed to Chinese perpetrators.

It did not elaborate.