The FBI 's cyber defenses fell to an attack from the Shiny Hunters extortion group last resulting in the theft of data belonging to a large number of current and former FBI employees.
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For its part, the FBI stated that it was aware of the breach that occurred on an external website belonging to it that is dedicated to recruitment within the office.
The group claimed responsibility for the breach in a post on its dark web site . It also displayed data on 5,000 clients of the office, a screenshot of the job site as evidence of the breach, and a sample of the total stolen data.
However, the news agency noted that it was unable to verify the authenticity of the screenshot, although the job site had recently experienced a malfunction that put it out of service, as well as its customer portal.
The data provided by the group as proof of the breach included data on FBI Director Kash Patel , without verifying the source of the leaked data, whether it was from the internal portal of the Bureau's clients or from other external sources.
This is not the first case
This is not the first time FBI platforms have been breached; Cynthia Kaiser, a former FBI official, explained that such alleged breaches are extremely damaging, given the possibility that criminals could exploit the leaked data to put pressure on FBI agents.
The FBI confirmed the breach and the theft of client data, but its source remains unknown. "Whether the breach originated from a third party or an FBI-affiliated organization, we are actively and diligently investigating this matter," the statement added, according to an NBC News report.
Revenge against the FBI
Shiny Hunters explained that the hack was retaliation against the FBI for a public service announcement about the group that the bureau published last May, which, according to the group, contained false information in an attempt to harm their business.
The group demanded the removal of the misleading statement, otherwise the stolen data would be made available through dark web forums, making it easier for criminals to access and exploit it, and gave the office about a week before making the data available.
The group also claimed to have stolen about 3 terabytes of data from the recruitment platform and other government platforms belonging to the office.
The group did not specify whether the breach was made with the help of artificial intelligence models or some other tool, but the technology is expected to be used in one way or another in the attack, due to its widespread use among hackers and cybercriminals.
But last December, artificial intelligence firm Anthropic announced that it had suspended a group of accounts linked to the Shiny Hunters group for undermining its business.
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