Distributed Denial of Secrets publishes DHS data on more than 40,000 workers

Reuters matched about six records and called three DHS employees

Distributed Denial of Secrets said Wednesday that it had released information on more than 40,000 Department of Homeland Security employees. The records include names, phone numbers, email addresses, job titles and email groups from component agencies. They cover employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other DHS components.

The material also identifies officials working in sensitive fields such as surveillance and human intelligence. Email groups showed which agents were assigned to special operations, surveillance jobs, computer forensics and undercover work. Some entries tracked information available on employees’ LinkedIn profiles, while others revealed nonpublic data about internal organization charts, previously undisclosed programs or operations.

Emma Best, a Distributed Denial of Secrets co-founder, said the hacktivist known as “maia arson crimew” developed a search tool that would allow the public to browse the information. Best said the tool would “replace anonymity with accountability” and could empower journalists, guide public-records requests and boost congressional oversight.

Distributed Denial of Secrets said the underlying material came from an entity calling itself the Department of Peace. The Department of Peace did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a statement included with the data said DHS employees “have our information, so it’s only fair that we have theirs.” The entity said it hoped the data “can be used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that direction.” In March, the Department of Peace claimed responsibility for hacking DHS and posting documents related to contracts with outside vendors.

Best said the Department of Peace harvested the data from the Okta sign-on service used by DHS. Reuters could not immediately corroborate that claim. Okta responded: “Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised.”

Reuters also could not immediately verify the authenticity of the entire trove. It did match personal information for about six DHS employees to credit bureau records and breach data carried by District 4 Labs.

Reuters called three DHS employees directly and confirmed their phone numbers and other details. One employee said it was the first the employee had heard of a breach. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Guardian’s report described the release as the third government data leak to make headlines in the past month. In September, the hacking group ShinyHunters claimed the theft of a massive trove of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including sensitive job details and medical information from thousands of employees.

The Defense Department faced a class-action lawsuit last week following a breach that exposed data on millions of current and former military personnel.

Reuters’s verification was limited to a portion of the release. The stated Okta acquisition route remained uncorroborated, Okta denied that its data or systems were compromised, and neither DHS nor the Department of Peace had responded when the report was published.