The names and personal information of more than 40,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees, including undercover agents, have reportedly been leaked.
WASHINGTON — The names and personal information of more than 40,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees, including ICE agents, have reportedly been leaked after hackers broke into the government agency’s personnel files.
The hacking group, known as the Department of Peace, revealed its scheme online before announcing the creation of a searchable database with email addresses and phone numbers. The group called out DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and said they were exacting vengeance through the hack following alleged escalation threats.
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“On July 17, Markwayne Mullin said he was ‘turning up the heat.’ This is what happens to ICE when you do that,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Peace.
A DHS spokesperson responded to the hack in a statement to the BBC, saying that the department is “aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively.”
The hack apparently also included the identities of undercover agents and technology used in their work, including from Palantir.
Hackers claimed they accessed the data through Okta, a popular corporate online security tool. However, Okta said that they had “no evidence our data or systems were compromised.”
In September, a similar hack, carried out by a group called ShinyHunters, exposed the employee data of thousands of FBI agents. On Oct. 9, the bureau announced that it had arrested a Canadian cybersecurity expert, Edward Dubrovsky, in Pennsylvania in connection with carrying out the FBI hack.
Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a platform for leaked information, similar to WikiLeaks, has become the staging ground for the information, as well as a search tool known as Icepick.
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