Oct. 29 (UPI) — More than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees had their personnel records hacked and the information posted online.
Wednesday’s leak contained the work addresses, phone numbers and job descriptions of staff working at the agency, mostly agents at Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the largest and third largest DHS agencies.
Uploaded to a database called Icepick, the tranche included the details of 21,000 CBP staff, 6,600 ICE workers as well Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Protective Service and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency personnel.
The data also contained the names of dozens of the agency’s operations, including undercover missions, which agents were in charge or worked on them, and the type and provider of tech utilized, with Cellbrite and Palantir mentioned by name.
DHS told the BBC it knew about a possible data breach and was actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively.”
“We take all security threats against our employees and officers seriously and will work to ensure all are properly protected. We will update the public when more information is available,” said a spokesperson.
A group called the Department of Peace claimed it was behind the theft, passing the data onto the non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which posted it online, and also sharing it with U.S. journalist Ryan Ottignon and Swiss hacker maia arson crimew, who built a searchable database.
“On July 17th, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said he was ‘turning up the heat.’ This is what happens to ICE when you do that,” the Department of Peace said in a statement.
In a separate note included in the data dump, DDS said DHS “have our information, so it’s only fair that we have theirs,” adding that its wish was that it “can be used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that direction.”
The hack was the third similar incident targeting a U.S. government agency in the past few weeks after a suspected attempt Monday to hack into the Federal Election Commission forced the agency to shutter its website and details of thousands of FBI agents was stolen Sept. 22 by a hacking group named ShinyHunters.
The attack targeting the FEC’s electronic filing system for candidate and political committees to disclose contributions, loans and spending in the critical 20-day window in the run-up to the Nov. 3 midterms brought campaign finance disclosures to a standstill, making it impossible to follow the money trail.
https://www.breitbart.com/news/work-details-of-more-than-41000-dhs-staff-hacked-published-online/
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