US Congress’s Budget Office Breached: Foreign Hackers Hunt for Economic Secrets
Washington is investigating a possible cyberattack targeting one of the U.S. Congress’s key analytical bodies—the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Preliminary reports suggest that a foreign group may be involved, raising grave concerns over potential leaks of internal data and communications between lawmakers and economic analysts.
The breach was detected in recent days, prompting the agency’s experts to launch a comprehensive review of its systems. According to several sources familiar with the matter, the attackers may have gained access to correspondence between congressional offices and CBO staff, as well as to the agency’s internal chats and email systems.
Officials at the CBO believe the intrusion was identified at an early stage. Following the incident, some members of Congress reportedly ceased exchanging information with analysts via email, fearing possible interception of their messages.
CBO spokesperson Caitlin Emma stated that the agency had taken immediate measures to contain the issue, strengthened system monitoring, and implemented additional layers of protection. She emphasized that work on economic assessments for Congress continues uninterrupted despite the incident.
The Congressional Budget Office plays a vital role in the U.S. legislative branch, producing economic forecasts and estimating how each proposed bill might affect the national debt. Its independent analyses serve as a counterbalance to the economic projections issued by the White House and its budget office, providing Congress with its own objective data.
The CBO has previously found itself at the center of political controversy. Earlier this summer, the agency faced criticism from Republican lawmakers following the release of its fiscal projections for the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which they claimed would increase the national debt by trillions of dollars. In response, the Senate amended the rules governing the use of CBO evaluations during budget deliberations.
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