Yellen raises ‘serious concern’ to China after US Treasury cyberattack

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen raised concerns on Monday to Beijing about “malicious cyber activity” by Chinese state-sponsored actors, days after her department reported such a breach. The incident, which the US Treasury Department disclosed last week, happened in December and resulted in access to some of its workstations and unclassified documents. In a virtual meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, Yellen “expressed serious concern about malicious cyber activity by PRC state-sponsored actors,” the Treasury said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. Yellen also flagged the impact of such issues on the US-China relationship, the statement said. But Beijing has rejected accusations that a state-sponsored actor was behind the cyberattack, calling the claims “groundless.” The Chinese foreign ministry said previously that Beijing “has always opposed all forms of hacker attacks, and we are even more opposed to the spread of false information against China for political purposes.”