The Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers’ nonpartisan bookkeeper, was hacked by a suspected foreign actor, according to an agency spokeswoman, potentially exposing the key financial research data Congress uses to craft legislation.
By Jacob Bogage
and CBO officials told lawmakers that they believe they detected the intrusion early, one of the people said.
Another of the people said some congressional offices have generally stopped corresponding with the CBO via email because of the cybersecurity risks.
“The Congressional Budget Office has identified the security incident, has taken immediate action to contain it, and has implemented additional monitoring and new security controls to further protect the agency’s systems going forward,” CBO spokeswoman Caitlin Emma said in a statement. “The incident is being investigated and work for the Congress continues. Like other government agencies and private sector entities, CBO occasionally faces threats to its network and continually monitors to address those threats.”
The CBO formulates economic projections for lawmakers, and every bill taken up in either chamber of Congress receives a CBO “score” of how much it would add to or subtract from the national debt.
The office’s analyses provide a counterweight to the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and Office of Management and Budget, giving Congress, as an equal branch of government, its own number-crunchers.
The CBO came under fire from congressional Republicans over the summer after it released its cost estimate for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The office’s determination that the legislation would add trillions to the national debt led the Senate GOP to rewrite some rules over how to apply the CBO’s scores.
Noah Robertson contributed to this report.
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