Media reveal goal of Chinese hackers targeting US Treasury

Chinese hackers who launched a cyberattack on the US Treasury Department targeted an important department of the agency that deals with sanctions against countries and groups of people imposed by the US government.

As reported by Washington Post, according to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the main target of the cyberattack on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was data on Chinese organisations that the US government may consider imposing financial sanctions on.

Officials added that the hack also affected the Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research.

Current and former officials have noted that even unclassified documents can be very useful to a competitor like China, as they can help hackers understand how the US develops sanctions policy and who is considered as potential targets.

A Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the hacking claims "baseless" and said that Beijing "has always opposed any form of hacking".

Earlier it was reported that the US Treasury Department said that a Chinese-funded organisation was behind the cyberattack that gained access to some of the department's working systems.

The incident occurred in December when an attacker hacked into a third-party cybersecurity provider and was able to remotely access the Treasury Department's systems and some unclassified documents, a spokesperson for the department said.