Crypto players were quick to respond to the news that hackers breached the U.S. Treasury Department.
According to a report from Reuters, a “sophisticated hacking group” backed by a foreign government — reportedly Russia, according to three people familiar with the investigation — was able to breach the U.S. Treasury Department as well as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, with the Department of Commerce.
The incident happened less than a month after Donald Trump fired Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs. However, Reuters stated that the hackers had been monitoring NTIA staff emails run on Microsoft’s Office 365 “for months.” Other government agencies may also have been breached, but sources did not provide additional details.
In response to the attack on such a powerful government agency, crypto players pointed out the advantages of Bitcoin (BTC).
“Bitcoin never gets hacked,” said Kraken’s head of business Dan Held on Twitter. Bitcoin bull Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano echoed Held’s sentiment, saying “Bitcoin has never been hacked.”
Blockfolio took aim at the NTIA’s cybersecurity, implying the agency used dated algorithms for its cryptographic security:
Bitcoin means trusting a SHA256 algorithm more than the U.S Treasury.
— Blockfolio (@blockfolio) December 13, 2020
It’s unclear whether any funds have been compromised as a result of the breach. At the time of publication, the hack seems to be limited to information potentially stolen from government agencies’ emails.
“Jokes on them,” said MyCrypto founder and CEO Taylor Monahan. “The treasury’s already been hacked by internal actors.” The statement may reflect the United States government printing more money in 2020 than for nearly entirety of the country’s existence.
