Hacker Fulfills Threat to Dump Data on 20K FBI Agents

By Katie Bo Williams, The Hill

09 February 16

n anonymous hacker on Monday made good on his threat to post the details of 20,000 FBI employees online, less than 24 hours after he dumped the data for 10,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel.

The hacker, who claims to have obtained the information by hacking the Department of Justice, shared both datasets with Motherboard in advance of the hack. The publication performed a spot check and found that most of the names, email addresses and job descriptions — including around 1,000 intelligence analysts — appear to be legitimate.

Officials have downplayed the alleged breach.

A DHS spokesperson said this morning that the agency is looking into the purported disclosure but that "there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive or personally identifiable information."

A Department of Justice spokesperson provided an almost-identical statement to Motherboard.

The hacker told Motherboard that he obtained the data by first compromising a Department of Justice email account, then tricking an agency representative into giving him a token code that allowed him to gain access to the work computer of the email account owner.

Tweets from the Twitter account tweeting out the databases suggest that the hack was motivated by support for Palestine.

“I think the government can hear #FreePalestine now hahhaha” the account tweeted on Monday.

“When will the US government realize we won't stop until they cut relations with Israel,” the account tweeted on Sunday.

Another group of hackers, known as Crackas with Attitude, have recently broken into the personal email accounts of several high-ranking law enforcement and intelligence officials to demonstrate support for Palestine.