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The US Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has disclosed a significant email breach, classified as a "major incident." The breach, which went undetected for over a year, involved unauthorized access to 150,000 emails within 100 accounts belonging to US bank regulators at the OCC. These emails contained highly sensitive details concerning the financial condition of federally regulated financial institutions, information critical to the OCC's examinations and supervisory oversight processes. The OCC became aware of unusual activity on February 11th, discovering an administrative account interacting with agency mailboxes in an unauthorized manner. IT staff confirmed the unauthorized access and disabled the affected accounts the following day.

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The OCC notified Congress about the incident on the same day as a Bloomberg report, calling it a “major incident.” Internal and independent investigations of email accounts and attachments indicate that OCC first became aware of the incident Feb. 11, when the office was notified of an administrative account that was interacting with agency mailboxes in an unusual fashion. The next day, IT staff confirmed the account’s access was unauthorized and disabled the accounts. Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney E. Hood stated that immediate steps have been taken to determine the full extent of the breach and address organizational deficiencies that contributed to it. Hood promised full accountability for the vulnerabilities identified and any missed internal findings that led to the unauthorized access.

Cybersecurity experts have expressed concern about the implications of this breach. The compromised data could allow malicious actors to exploit weaknesses in banks' cybersecurity controls and processes, making it easier to perpetrate fraud or disrupt services. Knowing the weakest targets and their specific vulnerabilities provides a significant advantage to attackers, enabling them to target banks with precision. Security experts also point to how recent cuts at CISA and other federal agencies will weaken cybersecurity in the federal government and across the public sector and U.S. election systems. The OCC is collaborating with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of the Treasury during its investigations.

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References :

• cyberscoop.com: Treasury bureau notifies Congress that email hack was a ‘major’ cybersecurity incident
• thecyberexpress.com: Hackers Had Access to 150,000 Emails in U.S. Treasury Email Breach
• www.scworld.com: Hackers accessed 150,000 emails of 100 US bank regulators at OCC
• securityaffairs.com: The US Treasury’s OCC disclosed an undetected major email breach for over a year
• CyberScoop: The OCC said the February incident resulted in the theft of “highly sensitive information" tied to the financial conditions of federally regulated institutions.
• BleepingComputer: Hackers lurked in Treasury OCC’s systems since June 2023 breach
• www.cybersecuritydive.com: Treasury Department bank regulator discloses major hack

Classification:

• HashTags: #treasury #emailbreach #cybersecurity
• Company: US Treasury
• Target: US bank regulators
• Feature: email access
• Type: DataBreach
• Severity: Major