FBI Director Kash Patel had his personal email hacked by a group of “Iran-backed hackers,” who published photographs of the FBI director and other documents on the internet.
The group, Handala Hack Team, claimed responsibility for the security breach Friday and said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”
Among the material shared online by the group were old pictures of Patel smoking cigars and pulling silly faces while taking selfies, as well as what appeared to be a copy of his previous resumé.
A Justice Department official confirmed to Reuters that Patel’s email had been breached and said the material published online appeared to be authentic.
In a statement, the FBI said it was “aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information” and had “taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity.”
“The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information,” the spokesperson added.
“The so called ‘impenetrable’ systems of the FBI were brought to their knees in a matter of hours by our team,” the hackers wrote. “All personal and confidential information of Kash Patel, including emails, documents, conversations, and even classified files, is now available for public download.”
The group claimed the attack had been in response to the FBI “proudly” seizing its domains and announcing a $10 million reward for information on its members, which it described as a “ridiculous show.”
“This is the security the U.S. government boasts about?” The hackers wrote.
Hackers appeared to publish Patel’s personal emails, dated between 2010 and 2019, depicting business correspondence, travel information and personal exchanges, a preliminary review of the files by Reuters found.
Some of the images appeared to show Patel, years before he became FBI Director, traveling to Cuba. One shows Patel standing next to a car with a Cuban license plate, another of Patel posing in front of La B del M, a historic bar in Havana. A person familiar with the incident confirmed the authenticity of the images to CNN.
Reuters was not able to independently authenticate the Patel emails, but the personal Gmail address that Handala claims to have broken into matches the address linked to Patel in previous data breaches preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs.
Handala, which calls itself a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units.
Handala recently claimed the hack of Michigan-based medical devices and services provider Stryker on March 11, claiming to have deleted a massive trove of company data.
While the group poses a genuine cybersecurity threat, they are also known to make sweeping claims that cannot always be verified.
In a statement, the FBI said: “Consistent with President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America, the FBI will continue to pursue the actors responsible, support victims, and share actionable intelligence in defense of networks. We encourage anyone who experiences a cyber breach, or has information related to malicious cyber activity, to contact their local FBI field office.”
Last week, the Justice Department announced it had seized four domains that it believes belonged to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security that were to be used to claim credit for hacking activity, posting sensitive data stolen during hacks and calling for the killing of journalists or anti-regime protesters.
Justice Department officials said they had used the domain Handala-hack to take credit for a March 2026 malware attack on medical tech companies.
In a statement last week, Patel accused Iran of trying to “hide behind fake websites and keyboard threats to terrorize Americans and silence dissidents.”
“This FBI will hunt down every actor behind these cowardly death threats and cyberattacks and will bring the full force of American law enforcement down on them,” Patel said after the seizure.
Reuters and Ariana Baio contributed to this report
