Hackers have made good on a threat they issued on Sunday and released the apparent names, job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of over 20,000 supposed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees Monday afternoon, just one day after doing the same with the information of almost 10,000 Department of Homeland Security employees.
Tomorrow we shall release 20,000 FBI employees data, including ones outside US. :)#FreePalestine
— penis (@DotGovs) February 8, 2016
The hackers, who remains unidentified, first contacted Motherboard about the alleged breach, giving them a series of names and numbers of those whose information was compromised. Verifying the authenticity of the list, Motherboard called a large selection of random numbers in both the DHS and FBI databases, with many of the calls reaching their respective voicemail boxes, and the names for their supposed owners matched with those in the database.
Furthermore, they even managed to speak to an alleged FBI Intelligence Analyst and a DHS employee who both identified themselves with the same name that was listed in the database.
The hackers explained that the DOJ help desk provided the necessary log-in information to allow them access to a workstation used by an employee. Once inside, the hacker was able to access the user's documents, as well as other documents on the local network.
After posting the information, the hacker gloated on Twitter, saying, "FBI and DHS info is dropped and that's all we came to do, so now its time to go, bye folks! #FreePalestine."
FBI and DHS info is dropped and that's all we came to do, so now its time to go, bye folks!#FreePalestine — penis (@DotGovs) February 8, 2016
The FBI has since verified the incident and said they are investigating the hack, noting it doesn't appear that private personnel information, such as Social Security numbers, were involved in the breach.
"The department is looking into the unauthorized access of a system operated by one of its components containing employee contact information," said DOJ spokesman Peter Carr, according to CNN. "This unauthorized access is still under investigation; however, there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information. The department takes this very seriously and is continuing to deploy protection and defensive measures to safeguard information. Any activity that is determined to be criminal in nature will be referred to law enforcement for investigation."
While it appears no "vital" information has been released, the fact that a hacker, one who openly supports the Free Palestine Movement no less, was able to gain access to nearly 1 terabyte of FBI data is disconcerting. Especially if the claim that the DOJ help desk provided the necessary information after a single phone call turns out to be true.
If you want to see the information, go here. The database can be decrypted using the password: "lol."
