The Library of Congress said hackers broke into its communications systems and read email correspondence with congressional offices for most of this year.
In a private message sent to some congressional offices on Friday, obtained by NBC News, the Library of Congress said hackers “accessed email communications between congressional offices and some of the library staff, including the Congressional Research Service.” The hackers had access from January to September, the report said.
The Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, provides a dedicated research staff for Congress. Last year, congressional staff provided more than 76,000 modified responses to questions, according to its most recent annual report.
Bill Ryan, director of communications at the Library of Congress, told NBC News in an email that the software vulnerability the hackers used to gain access has been “mitigated.”
“The Library has referred the matter to law enforcement authorities and is also conducting its own analysis of the breach,” Ryan said.
The message did not say who was behind the hack, only referring to the hackers as “the adversary,” a term sometimes used in the cybersecurity industry.
Countries with strong cyber espionage operations, including the United States, routinely attempt to target adversaries’ government networks and communications of lawmakers to gather intelligence. In recent years, China and Russia, both of which have strong cyber espionage agencies, have conducted sophisticated hacking operations to spy on the US government.
Four years ago, the US accused Russian cyber spies of hacking into widely used software from a company called SolarWinds, giving these hackers access to multiple US agencies, as well as hundreds of private companies. The Russian embassy in Washington DC previously called the attribution ‘unfounded’.
The U.S. has also accused China of multiple cyber espionage operations against the country, most recently hacking several U.S. telecommunications companies to spy on both parties’ recent presidential campaigns, as well as the staff of outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. . A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy previously declined to comment.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
