DHS data breach: hacker leaks details of more than 40,000 Homeland Security staff, including 21,000 CBP and 10,000 ICE
Names, job titles, phone numbers and login-system records were taken around mid-August, TechCrunch reports. DHS had not disclosed the breach.
Personal details of more than 40,000 US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees, about a fifth of its workforce of roughly 220,000, have been published online after a hacker stole them in a breach the department had not disclosed, TechCrunch reported on 28 October. NPR, the BBC and CNBC also reported the leak.
Who is in the data
| Agency | Records |
|---|---|
| Customs and Border Protection (CBP) | about 21,000 |
| ICE and Homeland Security Investigations | about 10,000 |
| CISA, the cyber defence agency | just under 1,000 |
| DHS headquarters, USCIS, Federal Protective Service and others | thousands more |
What was taken
- Names, job titles and work contact details: email addresses, mobile numbers and office locations.
- Records from DHS's Okta single sign-on system: user accounts and which internal systems and apps each person can use.
- Active Directory group memberships, which show access to internal and third-party tools.
Timestamps suggest the data was taken around mid-August. TechCrunch matched several known employees' names against a copy and says the records appear genuine.
Who did it
The hacker uses the name "Department of Peace" and says the data came from DHS's Okta login system. The files were passed to the hacker and journalist maia arson crimew, who shared them with DDoSecrets, a nonprofit that hosts leaked datasets. It is the same hacker's second DHS breach this year; in March they claimed to have taken thousands of DHS contracts.
Okta said: "Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised." DHS did not immediately respond, and it is not clear whether the weakness has been fixed.
What the groups reveal
About 4,500 users, including ICE officers, sit in a group for the Headspace mental health app (Headspace says it has not served DHS or ICE since 2023). More than 200 CBP users are linked to Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app, and other groups relate to investigations into the China-linked hacking groups Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon.
The leak follows breaches this year of FBI personnel records and the Pentagon's HR unit. For readers in Pakistan, the lesson is the same as for any organisation: a single-sign-on account is the key to everything, so turn on two-step verification wherever you can and treat unexpected login prompts as suspect.
Sources
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