Chinese government hackers have hacked into the highly secretive Treasury Department office that imposes economic sanctions on countries and groups. This is one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of the United States to achieve national security goals,

The hacker was able to remotely access certain Treasury workstations and “certain unclassified documents maintained by those users,” the department said.

The episode comes at a particularly sensitive moment, just as the Biden White House is dealing with one of the most far-reaching, and damaging, hacks into American infrastructure in the cyberage.