Technology1 min read

Leak website releases data on thousands of US Homeland Security employees

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Distributed Denial of Secrets shared contact information and organizational roles for over 40,000 Department of Homeland Security personnel, including staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. An entity calling itself the "Department of Peace" claimed it extracted the material via the agency's Okta sign-on service, though Okta reported no evidence that its own systems were compromised. Hacktivist "maia arson crimew" built a public search tool to query the exposed database, which was confirmed to contain accurate personal information for multiple employees. Federal officials acknowledged the incident and are actively working to mit…

Key points

  • The breach exposes sensitive nonpublic organizational structures and compromises the oper…: The breach exposes sensitive nonpublic organizational structures and compromises the operational cover of personnel working in covert homeland security roles.
  • Identity provider Okta reported no internal system compromise despite claims from the sou…: Identity provider Okta reported no internal system compromise despite claims from the source entity that the database was harvested via its service.
  • The disclosure represents the third major federal breach incident disclosed within a mont…: The disclosure represents the third major federal breach incident disclosed within a month following compromises tied to the FBI and the Defense Department.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

WASHINGTON, Oct 28 : The leak website Distributed Denial of Secrets said on Wednesday it has released data on more than 40,000 Department of Homeland Security employees, including details about officials working in sensitive fields such as surveillance and human intelligence.

DHS said in a statement it was "aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively." The agency said it was working to ensure its employees were properly protected and would update the public "when more information is available.”

The disclosure — which the nonprofit data transparency group says draws on information obtained by an entity calling itself "Department of Peace" — is the third major government data leak to have made headlines in the past month.

In September, the hacking group ShinyHunters claimed the theft of a massive trove of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including sensitive job details and medical information from thousands of bureau employees. Last week, the Defense Department was hit with a class action lawsuit following a breach that exposed data on millions of current…

Technology