A group of hackers backed by a foreign government hacked the Treasury Department system and National Telecommunications and Information Administration and managed to steal their data. This was reported by Reuters citing sources familiar with the situation.
According to the agency’s source, the scale of the hacking was so serious that on Saturday, December 12, a meeting of the US National Security Council was held at the White House.
White House Security Council spokesman John Ulliott told the agency that the US government is aware of the incident and “is taking all necessary steps to identify and eliminate any potential problems associated with this situation.”
The US intelligence community fears that the hackers who carried out the attacks could use a similar method to break into other government agencies.
At the end of October, hackers stole from the account US Republican Party in Wisconsin $ 2.3 million, which was intended for the presidential election campaign Donald Trump . They were able to take advantage of this by sending a request that looked like a real money request. It is known that FBI is investigating the incident.