Wyden Statement Following Treasury and IRS Briefing on SolarWinds Hack

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today released the following statement after Finance Committee staff was briefed by the Treasury Department and IRS on the SolarWinds hack: 

“Finance Committee staff was briefed today on the SolarWinds hack, and I appreciate Treasury and IRS officials sharing what they know as they continue to learn more. According to IRS, there is no evidence that IRS was compromised or taxpayer data was affected. However, the hack of the Treasury Department appears to be significant.

“According to Treasury staff, the agency suffered a serious breach, beginning in July, the full depth of which isn’t known. Microsoft notified the agency that dozens of email accounts were compromised. Additionally the hackers broke into systems in the Departmental Offices division of Treasury, home to the department’s highest-ranking officials. Treasury still does not know all of the actions taken by hackers, or precisely what information was stolen.

“Finally, after years of government officials advocating for encryption backdoors, and ignoring warnings from cybersecurity experts who said that encryption keys become irresistible targets for hackers, the USG has now suffered a breach that seems to involve skilled hackers stealing encryption keys from USG servers.”

###

• Print
• Email
• Tweet