Chamber officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Chinese hackers focused on four chamber employees who worked on Asia policy, stealing six weeks' worth of their email. The organization was tipped off to the data breach early last year by the FBI.
An internal chamber investigation of the data breach conducted in May 2010 was unable to determine how much additional information was viewed by the attackers. The hackers could have had access to the network more than a year before the data breach was discovered, people familiar with the investigation told the newspaper.
One of the newspaper’s sources said the group behind the break-in is one that US officials suspect of having ties to the Chinese government. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington responded that the allegation that the attack against the chamber originated in China "lacks proof and evidence and is irresponsible."
The chamber has taken steps to secure itself in the wake of the breach, a chamber spokesman told the New York Times. The chamber has installed more sophisticated detection equipment and updated its policies which now include “barring employees from taking portable devices with them to certain countries”, the spokesman said.