
Non-profit group leaks data of more than 40,000 homeland security workers
Information released by Distributed Denial of Secrets is the third such government data disclosure in the last month
The leak website Distributed Denial of Secrets said on Wednesday it has released data on more than 40,000 Department â of Homeland Security (DHS) employees, including details about officials working in sensitive fields such as surveillance and human intelligence.
DHS did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The disclosure â which the â non-profit data transparency group says draws â on information obtained âÂÂby an entity calling itself âÂÂDepartment of Peaceâ â is the third government data leak to have made headlines in the past month.
In September, the hacking group ShinyHunters claimed â 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 â a class action lawsuit following a breach that exposed data on millions of current and former military personnel.
The DHS data includes âÂÂnames, phone numbers and email addresses of employees from Immigration âÂÂand Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border âÂÂProtection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other DHS component agencies.
Also included in the data were job âÂÂtitles 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, Emma Best, a Distributed Denial of Secrets co-founder, said the hacktivist known as âÂÂmaia arson crimewâ developed a search tool for the data that would allow the public to browse it. Best said the tool would âÂÂreplace anonymity with accountabilityâ and empower journalists, guide public records requests and boost congressional oversight.
The Department of Peace did not immediately respond âÂÂto a request for comment, but in a statement included with the data, it said that DHS employees âÂÂhave our information, so itâÂÂs only fair that we have theirsâ and that it hoped the data âÂÂcan âÂÂbe used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that directionâÂÂ.
The Department of Peace in March claimed responsibility for hacking DHS and posting documents related to contracts with outside vendors.
BestâÂÂs statement said Department of Peace harvested the data from the Okta sign-on service used by DHS. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim. Okta said in response to a Reuters query: âÂÂOkta is â secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised.âÂÂ
Reuters could not immediately âÂÂverify the authenticity of the entire data âÂÂtrove but it was able to match âÂÂpersonal information of about six DHS employees named in the leak to credit bureau records and breach data âÂÂcarried by the dark âÂÂweb intelligence platform District 4 âÂÂLabs. In other cases, âÂÂReuters called three DHS employees directly and was able to confirm their phone numbers and other details. One said it was the first they had heard of a breach.
In several cases, the data tracked information available on DHS employeesâ LinkedIn profiles. But in others, the data revealed nonpublic data about internal DHS organization charts or previously undisclosed programs or operations.
