ShinyHunters claims it hacked the FBI and stole data on thousands of agents

The hacking group ShinyHunters has claimed to have breached the internal databases of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations. According to PC Gamer, the group says it now holds data on all FBI employees and applicants. A sample provided to 404 Media appears to contain the personal data of 5,000 FBI employees, including addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and in some cases details on their spouse.

The group allegedly exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Oracle software to breach the FBI's jobs portal and take 2 to 3 terabytes of data, as reported by Quartz and TechRadar. The FBI jobs website was also defaced as part of the hack, showing a message that said "this site has been seized by ShinyHunters". The site is currently down for maintenance.

US officials are investigating claims that sensitive data on FBI employees and job applicants was stolen in a major cyberattack, with the FBI confirming that an investigation is underway, according to Ajel English. Security agencies have expressed growing concerns that the stolen data could be circulated among various parties on the dark web, posing an additional security threat.

Brief written by urgent.news from Quartz, PC Gamer, TechRadar, Ajel English — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.