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Somebody thought to have China links hacked the U.S. Treasury.

I'm David Brancaccio.

It has emerged that hackers were detected in the computers of the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Department is pointing a finger at China.

Treasury says it learned of what it terms a major incident on December the 8th. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genser joins us now with more.

Well, David, in a letter to the Senate Banking Committee, Treasury officials say beyond trust, a software service provider told them about the hack.

Treasury says what it calls a threat actor got a hold of a key beyond trust used to secure a cloud-based service.

The hackers use that key to remotely access some Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents.

And Treasury is suggesting China is behind this?

Yeah, the letter says the incident has been attributed to a China state actor.

The letter says there's no evidence.

The hackers are still accessing Treasury information. and Treasury has taken the compromised service offline.

Now, this latest incident that's come to light is on top of a different hacking operation we've been covering.

Also, apparently, with links to China, who is targeted in the other one?

Yeah, that hack is nicknamed Salt Typhoon,

and it was aimed at senior federal officials and politicians. They're being urged to use

end-to-end encrypted communications like signal that have features like disappearing messages and

images. All right, Washington correspondent, Nancy Marshall Genser. Thank you.

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