On February 2, Forward Defense and Rafik Hariri Center nonresident senior fellow Thomas Warrick was quoted in a Reuters report titled “Exclusive: Suspected Chinese hackers used SolarWinds bug to spy on US payroll agency.” The report outlines a suspected Chinese breach of the US Department of Agriculture’s National Financial Center, which handles the payroll and W-2 of many civilian Federal agencies. Warrick is quoted on the grave threat posed by such a breach to US national security.
Depending on what data were compromised, this could be an extremely serious breach of security … It could allow adversaries to know more about US officials, improving their ability to collect intelligence.

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