Cybercrime
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Fraud Management & Cybercrime
FBI Vows to Dismantle Hacking Group After It Stole FBI Personnel Data
The FBI announced Friday the arrest of a suspected hacker behind the breach of a bureau HR system, marking the third recent detention of an alleged member of the ShinyHunters extortion group.
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The suspect, arrested earlier week in Pennsylvania, is a Canadian citizen, reported the New York Times. “This is the latest arrest this FBI has made in a matter of days involving this network, as we work non-stop to dismantle the group, pursue new leads and evidence, and act quickly,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in an statement.
“We will continue to work closely with our partners to disrupt what’s left of the ShinyHunters group and their associates, no matter where they operate,” he said.
Authorities in Jordan earlier this month arrested Saif al-Din Khader, 16, a suspected ShinyHunters member who’s believed used the aliases “Rey” and “ReyXB,” reported Reuters on Saturday (see: Key ShinyHunters Suspect Reportedly Detained in Jordan).
Dutch police in September arrested another suspected member, a 24-year-old Dutch national who used the alias “Umbreon.” Police said he’s suspected of helping to perpetrate multiple breaches, including of Pornhub and TicketMaster. The suspect, identified as Pepijn van der Stap by independent cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs, was detained before ShinyHunters announced that it stole data pertaining to FBI employees and job applicants.
ShinyHunters in September stole extensive amounts of bureau personnel data, including information about 5,000 agents. The group claimed that it took more than 2 terabytes of data after wielding a zero-day exploit against the FBI’s Oracle PeopleSoft software, then pivoting to its Amazon Web Services GovCloud environment (see: Cyber Extortion Group Claims: ‘We Have Compromised the FBI’).
The FBI removed a contractor working for Accenture after determining the outsourced employee failed to update a system exploited by the extortion group. FBI Cyber Division Chief Brett Leatherman said the contractor responsible for the affected system failed to apply a patch that had been “explicitly issued to secure the platform,” Reuters reported.
ShinyHunters has persisted as a digital extortion concern despite arrests by law enforcement of its members. The group “is best understood not as a fixed gang but as a financially motivated data theft and extortion brand,” cybersecurity firm Sekoi said in an Oct. 1 report. “A group that has persisted since 2020 across changing membership, surviving multiple arrests and forum seizures along the way.” The group’s name comes from Pokémon, “where ‘shiny hunters’ are dedicated gamers whose purpose is to find rare color variant (‘shiny’) Pokémon,” Sekoia wrote.
Among the group’s targets have been the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, from which the group leaked the driver license’s of deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as proof. Other victims so far this year included Instructure’s e-learning platform Canvas, dental and vision benefits administrator DentaQuest and Amazon-owned primary care provider One Medical.
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