FBI Investigates ShinyHunters Breach of Employee Personnel Data, Vows to Pursue Hackers
A cybercriminal group known as ShinyHunters claimed last week to have stolen sensitive employment data from the FBI, including job applications, family details, and medical information. The FBI confirmed it is "aggressively" investigating the breach, which appears connected to its FBIJobs.gov website. The FBI's cyber division assistant director Brett Leatherman posted a video on social media Tuesday warning the group to come forward.
Single source · Not corroborated
FBI Assistant Director of the Cyber Division Brett Leatherman posted a video to social media Tuesday warning the ShinyHunters hacking group to contact the bureau voluntarily. "You know how to find us, and we know how to find you," Leatherman said, adding: "I suggest you reach out first while the choice is still yours."
The FBI said in a statement to NPR that it is working "around the clock to investigate the cyber incident involving FBIJobs.gov" and is communicating with anyone who may be affected. The bureau said it sent multiple "bureau wide communications within 24 hours of public reporting" of the breach. The full scope of the stolen data has not been confirmed, but current and former FBI employees speaking to NPR on condition of anonymity said the tranche could amount to several terabytes of text files, encompassing job applications, promotion records, sensitive job postings, family details, and medical data.
The FBI said it is still determining whether hackers accessed third-party software or its own internal systems. Google's Mandiant published research indicating that ShinyHunters is targeting a vulnerability in Oracle's PeopleSoft human resources software, which the FBI uses. Google disclosed the vulnerability in June and noted that while a patch was released, some organizations implemented only partial mitigations such as firewalls, which ShinyHunters has been able to bypass.