Hacker stole personnel data about thousands of Homeland Security employees, including CBP and ICE agents

In a recently disclosed data breach, personal information of thousands of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees has been published online. The stolen data includes names, job titles, work contact information, such as email addresses, cell phone numbers, and office locations, of over 40,000 individuals. This extensive dataset pertains to personnel from various DHS agencies, including border and immigration agents, cybersecurity experts, and senior department officials.

The hacker, who goes by the username Department of Peace, obtained the data from an Okta single sign-on system utilized by DHS. The Okta system contains IT and login records for each employee's account, indicating the systems and internal applications they can access. Approximately 21,000 records in the dataset are linked to employees working for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), who operate at airports and other ports of entry.

The breach also encompasses records of around 10,000 employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), along with nearly 1,000 staff members at the cybersecurity defense agency CISA.

The hacker left a message alongside the data, stating, "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs." The hacker did not provide further clarification when contacted for comment. This is not the first data breach to affect the U.S. government; other recent breaches have included the unauthorized access to FBI agents' personnel records and the personal details of millions of former and serving military personnel from the Pentagon's human resources unit.

This is the second breach involving DHS this year, following the theft of numerous contracts between the department and private-sector entities, including defense contractors and surveillance vendors.

The stolen DHS data provides an unprecedented glimpse into the agency's operations, including its use of surveillance technologies and cybersecurity tools. Critics have called for investigations into tech companies that provide their technology to ICE, given the leaked information about employee membership in user groups, such as Penlink, a web surveillance company contracted by ICE for years. The user groups range in size, from small groups in individual offices to larger groups spanning multiple agencies.