Hackers Publish Data on 40,000 DHS Workers, Including Undercover Agents

A hacking collective named the Department of Peace said Wednesday it penetrated the Department of Homeland Security's personnel files and released names, phone numbers and addresses for more than 40,000 DHS agents, operatives and associates, including some who work undercover.

The group said it gained entry by subverting the department's single sign-on system. It passed the material to Distributed Denial of Secrets, which posted it in a database called Icepick, and also gave it to Ryan Ottignon, a U.S.-based journalist, and a Swiss hacker known as maia arson crimew. Ottignon told NPR the two built a searchable online database, with crimew handling the technical work. More than 21,000 records cover employees at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Another 10,000 concern Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff and its Homeland Security Investigations unit.

Emma Best, a cofounder of DDoSecrets, called the leak "extraordinary but deceptive in its simplicity," writing that it makes explicit connections between "officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations … along with key personnel in DHS's ever-escalating rendition and deportation programs." A spokesperson for the Department of Peace tied the breach to remarks Markwayne Mullin made on July 17 about "turning up the heat," adding, "This is what happens to ICE when you do that."

DHS said in a statement that it was "aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively," and that it is taking steps to "ensure all are properly protected." The department has not said when it learned of the intrusion or which systems were reached.

The published records cover roughly a fifth of the DHS workforce, which numbers a little more than 220,000 people. Ottignon rejected the suggestion that the effort amounts to doxing government workers, saying public officials often conceal their identities by wearing masks and plain clothes. "We need oversight for useful government, if it exists at all. So this is just one step in that oversight process," he said. A note attached to the files reads: "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs."

Activists working on DHS-related records requests say names and email addresses are often what such requests turn on, and that without them the responses are unusable. The release follows other hacking incidents at the FBI.