Hackers Publish Work Details of 41,000 Homeland Security Employees
Hackers published work details of 41,191 Department of Homeland Security employees and contractors on October 28, including names, job titles, office locations, and phone numbers.
The nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets published a dataset called Icepick containing work details for 41,191 DHS employees and contractors, including 21,329 from Customs and Border Protection and about 10,000 from ICE. The searchable archive also lists more than 55,000 internal permission groups that control system access.
Source of Breach
The hacktivist group Department of Peace claims to have taken the records from an Okta single sign-on service used by DHS. However, Okta disputes this claim, stating it has no evidence its systems were compromised.
Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised.
Motivation and Response
The hackers acted after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pledged stepped-up ICE operations. 'On July 17th, Markwayne Mullin said he was 'turning up the heat.' This is what happens to ICE when you do that,' a Department of Peace spokesperson said. DHS has filed a takedown notice through security firm ZeroFox.
Security Concerns
Security researchers warn the contact details could help impersonate supervisors or identify personnel behind sensitive investigations. DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best confirmed the dataset contains no home addresses. The newest records in the archive date to August 19, with some entries already outdated.
Related
