CBO systems accessed in ‘security incident’ possibly tied to foreign hackers

The Congressional Budget Office, Capitol Hill’s nonpartisan accounting service that delivers financial assessments for legislation, was accessed in a hack potentially tied to a foreign hacker group.

“The Congressional Budget Office has identified the security incident, has taken immediate action to contain it, and has implemented additional monitoring and new security controls to further protect the agency’s systems going forward,” CBO spokesperson Caitlin Emma said in a statement. 

“The incident is being investigated and work for the Congress continues. Like other government agencies and private sector entities, CBO occasionally faces threats to its network and continually monitors to address those threats,” the statement added.

A Senate Budget Committee staffer acknowledged the hack to Nextgov/FCW and said the panel remains in contact with CBO leadership and is closely monitoring the situation.

The statements did not dispute Thursday reporting by The Washington Post indicating that the hack might be tied to a foreign adversary. CBO data is a valuable target for nation-state hackers because it may contain detailed economic projections, budget analyses and policy impact assessments that can reveal U.S. government priorities and other legislative plans that adversaries can exploit for strategic, political or financial advantage.

Given the nature of the office’s work, the hack could have exposed internal deliberations between lawmaker staffers and researchers. Last year, a foreign adversary accessed the contents of email communications between congressional legislative staffers and staff in the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service. 

Nextgov/FCW has also reached out to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for comment.