Hacker leaks information of Homeland Security, FBI employees
As the federal government is still recovering from the massive 2015 data breach of the Office of Personnel Management, a hacker has reportedly accessed and leaked information on nearly 30,000 employees from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the latest breach.
See also: Fingerprints from 5.6 million people were stolen in huge U.S. data breach
In a story originally reported Sunday night by Vice's Motherboard, an anonymous hacker told the publication he planned to leak information on 20,000 FBI employees and 9,000 DHS employees. The hacker also claimed to have downloaded massive amounts of data from a Department of Justice computer.
Motherboard confirmed the information included in the link, which it obtained from the hacker.
On Sunday, Motherboard obtained the supposedly soon-to-be-leaked data and called a large selection of random numbers in both the DHS and FBI databases. Many of the calls went through to their respective voicemail boxes, and the names for their supposed owners matched with those in the database. At one point, Motherboard reached the operations center of the FBI, according to the person on the other end.
One alleged FBI intelligence analyst did pick up the phone, and identified herself as the same name as listed in the database. A DHS employee did the same, but did not feel comfortable confirming his job title, he said.
As of late afternoon Monday, both leaks were also confirmed by Wired. A DHS spokesman told NBC News that there was no "sensitive or personally identifiable information" included in the leak.
And a DHS spokesperson told Motherboard, "We are looking into the reports of purported disclosure of DHS employee contact information. We take these reports very seriously, however there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive or personally identifiable information."
A note in the leaked files, according to the International Business Times, includes a pro-Palestinian message which reads, in part, "this is for Palestine, Ramallah, West Bank, Gaza, this is for the child that is searching for an answer."
Though not directly named in either the Motherboard or Wired reports, Twitter account @DotGov has tweeted its claim as being the responsible hackers.
Tomorrow we shall release 20,000 FBI employees data, including ones outside US.
smile #FreePalestine
-- p***s (@DotGovs) February 8, 2016
FBI and DHS info is dropped and that's all we came to do, so now its time to go, bye folks!#FreePalestine
-- p***s (@DotGovs) February 8, 2016
top security by @TheJusticeDept here!!! pic.twitter.com/fIt4GIf6pJ
-- p***s (@DotGovs) February 8, 2016
Mashable has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.
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http://mashable.com/2016/02/08/homeland-security-fbi-employees-hack/