ShinyHunters, a prolific cybercriminal group identified for large-scale knowledge theft and extortion, says it has breached the FBI and stolen knowledge on 1000’s of brokers and candidates. The hackers made the declare on their darkish net leak web site, which TechCrunch reviewed, saying they’d stolen “delicate knowledge on virtually all FBI brokers and people who filed an software with the FBI for a job.”
404 Media first reported on the breach after receiving a pattern of the stolen names, dwelling addresses, and cellphone numbers of FBI brokers and their spouses, and verifying a portion of the stolen knowledge towards public data. The hackers say their hack is “not financially motivated,” and are demanding that the FBI take away a report that they are saying accommodates false allegations in regards to the group.
The impartial publication stated the hackers breached an Oracle PeopleSoft server, typically utilized by human assets and recruiters to retailer job candidates’ private info, then pivoted to breach an Amazon-hosted authorities cloud storing the brokers and candidates’ knowledge.
ShinyHunters informed the publication that they took terabytes of information however didn’t say what they’d do with the knowledge if the FBI doesn’t take down its printed report. The stolen knowledge might current a serious counterintelligence menace, during which hackers and abroad spies use the knowledge to coerce or extort FBI brokers and their households into cooperating with a international authorities.
The hackers reportedly defaced the FBI’s jobs web site, which confirmed on the time of publication that the portal was “at present down for upkeep.” The positioning additionally stated that the FBI’s particular agent applicant portal was additionally down.
The FBI didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the incident on Tuesday, and neither did the ShinyHunters hackers.
That is the second identified breach of an FBI system this 12 months after unidentified hackers broke into one of many company’s programs for managing real-time wiretaps and international intelligence-gathering warrants, which might have recognized targets of the company’s surveillance. Individually, FBI director Kash Patel additionally had his private electronic mail account hacked and leaked by an Iran-backed hacking group referred to as Handala in retaliation for U.S.-led strikes towards Iran.
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