DHS Breach: 41,000 Employee Records Leaked by Hacker

Personal files for more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees are now available to the public after a hacker claimed responsibility for the theft. The exposed records include names, job titles, phone numbers, email addresses, and specific office locations. About 21,000 of these files belong to Customs and Border Protection officers, while nearly 7,000 relate to Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff.

The breach occurred when an intruder accessed Okta, an identity and access management service used by the department. TechCrunch and Wired reported that the hacker, who operates under the name "Department of Peace," utilized this vulnerability to extract the data. The stolen material also covers records from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Homeland Security Investigations.

This incident marks a shift for federal agents who have traditionally kept their identities concealed. DHS officers have conducted anti-immigration raids nationwide, and the department has monitored online critics. The hacker justified the leak by stating, "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs." The data was passed to cybersecurity researcher maia arson crimew, who shared it with the nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets. The organization is currently hosting the dataset under the name "Icepick."

The leak follows a recent breach at the FBI, where hackers stole data on employees and job applicants just weeks ago. The new DHS data includes links connecting specific agency groups to surveillance tools. Among these are Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition application, and PenLink, a system that collects and analyzes data from phones and online services.

DHS has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the scope of the breach or the specific measures taken to secure its systems. The availability of these records provides a detailed view of the department's internal structure and the technologies employed by its various divisions.