WASHINGTON — The leak website Distributed Denial of Secrets said Wednesday it 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.
A DHS spokesperson said the agency “is aware of a potential breach and is 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.”
The department asked an Icelandic hosting company Thursday to take down or limit access to data related to thousands of agency personnel, saying the content put them at risk, according to the request posted online by hosting company FlokiNET.
The database “places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking, and physical harm,” the request said.
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ZeroFox, a company authorized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to pursue content removal actions, cited the figure in an email to FlokiNET.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks at a Sept. 1 news conference in New York City.
FlokiNET CEO Kolja Weber told Reuters his company would not remove the DHS data because it included government employee work addresses and work phone numbers, not personal phone numbers and addresses.
Nonprofit data transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets released data on more than 40,000 DHS personnel on its website Wednesday, alongside a separate, searchable database developed by hacker and journalist "maia arson crimew." The database was briefly inaccessible Thursday but was soon republished at a different domain.
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 and former military personnel.
The DHS data includes names, phone numbers and email addresses of employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other DHS component agencies.
Also included in the data were job titles and email groups, which, among other details, showed which agents were assigned to special operations, surveillance jobs, computer forensics and undercover work.
In a statement, DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best said the hacktivist and journalist known as "maia arson crimew" developed a search tool for the data that would allow the public to browse it. Best said the tool would "replace anonymity with accountability" and empower journalists, guide public records requests and boost congressional oversight. Referring to the Freedom of Information Act, Crimew said her tool would provide "FOIA material for years to come!"
The Department of Peace did not immediately respond to a request for comment but, in a statement included with the data, it said DHS employees "have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs" and it hoped the data "can be used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that direction."
The Department of Peace in March claimed responsibility for hacking DHS and posting documents related to contracts with outside vendors.
Best's statement said the Department of Peace harvested the data from the Okta sign-on service used by DHS. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim.
"Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised," Okta said in response to a Reuters query.
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the entire data trove but it was able to match personal information about six DHS employees named in the leak to credit bureau records and breach data carried by the dark web intelligence platform District 4 Labs. Reuters called three DHS employees directly and was able to confirm their phone numbers and other details. One said it was the first they’d heard of a breach.
In several cases, the data tracked information available on DHS employees' LinkedIn profiles. But in others, the data revealed nonpublic data about internal DHS organization charts or previously undisclosed programs or operations.
