(DCWatchdog.com) – Killnet, a pro-Russian hacker group, attacked the US Treasury Department last month, but the cyberattack was successfully repelled, a Treasury official has revealed.
The pro-Russian cyberattack on the Treasury Department had not been reported previously by the US government or by the hackers themselves.
It occurred a couple of days before, on October 11, Killnet posted online a message saying it had targeted the network infrastructure of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
However, the bank said there had been no impact on its operations, Newsmax reported citing Reuters.
In October, the pro-Russian hackers assumed responsibility for several cyberattacks against US states and airports.
Their previously unknown attack against the US Treasury Department was revealed on Tuesday by Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo’s cybersecurity secretary Todd Conklin.
Conklin told a conference on financial services cybersecurity that the Russian attack was a “pretty low-level DDoS activity targeting Treasury’s critical infrastructure nodes.”
He praised the Treasury Department’s effectiveness in tackling cyber threats to the nation’s financial system based on a new “stronger” approach to cybersecurity.
The official revealed the Treasury reacted to Killnet’s distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by swiftly sharing with financial service firms the Internet protocol (IP) addresses used by the hackers. The move was based on new cybersecurity procedures instituted under the Biden administration.
“It confirmed that we’re on the right track with how we’re trying to actually share tactical information with the sector in real time with the mind that we are interconnected and face the same threat actors,” said Conklin, who joined Treasury during President Donald Trump’s term.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told the same conference the pro-Russian attack was a “stark reminder” the department and the financial industry faced the same threats, particularly after Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine more than eight months ago.
“Before and over the course of this unconscionable invasion, we have remained in close contact with many of you to provide critical updates, flag potential risks, and ensure we are giving you what you need to keep your systems secure,” Adeyemo stated.
He urged the Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee (FBIIC), which the federal government leads, and the industry-led Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC) to collaborate deeper on new systemic risks.
Both groups were established 20 years ago, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
The Treasury last month repelled cyber attacks by a pro-Russian hacker group, but the incident caused little to no disruption and confirmed that the department's stronger approach to financial system cybersecurity was working, an official said. https://t.co/wKtq3XNL7c
— Newsmax (@newsmax) November 1, 2022
