A hacking group says it gained access to FBI systems and collected personal information belonging to current and former employees as well as people who applied for jobs with the bureau.
ShinyHunters announced the alleged breach last week on its dark web site. The group claims the material covers a large number of FBI agents and job applicants. The FBI did not respond at the time to repeated messages seeking comment about the situation.
Problems were visible on the bureau’s recruiting websites that day. The FBI jobs site and the online system used by special agent applicants were both unavailable. ShinyHunters also presented an image that it said showed the jobs website after it had been altered. Reuters could not confirm whether the image was authentic.
The hackers released a small amount of personal information as evidence for their claim. Reuters examined some of those records and found that information belonging to several of the people appeared to be accurate. The checking process involved outside records, including information held by District 4 Labs.
There is still no confirmation that those records were actually taken from FBI computers. Reuters could not determine where the information originated, leaving open the question of how ShinyHunters obtained it. People identified in the material could not be reached to provide more information.
The hackers have also described how they say they got inside. According to their account, the operation began with access involving Oracle’s PeopleSoft software, which can be used for employment-related information. ShinyHunters says it later reached another collection of government data stored using Amazon cloud technology.
The amount taken was extremely large according to the group, which described it as terabytes of information. That account has not been independently verified.
ShinyHunters says it was not looking for a payment when it targeted the FBI. The group instead points to a dispute that began after the bureau published information about it in May.
That FBI publication described methods associated with ShinyHunters and advised organizations dealing with the group against paying. ShinyHunters says parts of the document are false and wants the FBI to remove it. The group has not explained what it plans to do with the information it says it has if the publication stays up.
The alleged breach comes after other cybersecurity problems connected to the FBI this year. Hackers previously gained unauthorized access to technology associated with surveillance operations. In another case, information from FBI Director Kash Patel’s private email was obtained and released by Handala, which was described as an Iran-backed hacking group.
ShinyHunters has also appeared in reports involving companies and schools. It claimed to have taken millions of business records from Rockstar Games. A separate incident centered on the Canvas education platform caused widespread problems at schools in May.
More recently, Anthropic reported an attempt by hackers associated with the group to make use of its AI technology. ShinyHunters has also been publicly feuding with the cybercrime group cl0p.
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