FBI rushes to investigate if ShinyHunters hack of thousands of employees is real

The FBI is now investigating claims from a hacker group that thousands of current and former employees’ personal data was stolen after the group exploited a previously unknown bug found on an agency jobs website. On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that ShinyHunters took down the agency site, FBIJobs.gov, then posted a banner on the homepage that said “THIS SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED BY SHINYHUNTERS.” About two to three terabytes of data were taken, ShinyHunters told The New York Times. None of the data has been leaked yet, but it included “names of current and former agents as well as applicants and corresponding home addresses, phone numbers, names of spouses, certain medical information, and other data.” According to Bloomberg, the data could be used to potentially retaliate against agents, with one sample appearing to include “potentially sensitive professional information on the FBI employees’ work focus such as counter-intelligence work on China, Russia and Iran, as well as work against street gangs.” The group’s motive was not to extort the FBI or seek a ransom, it claimed. Instead, the strike was meant to force the FBI to either remove or edit a May advisory warning about ShinyHunters that the group said circulated “disinformation in an attempt to ‘disrupt’ our operations.” In a message posted on the dark web that was reviewed by Ars, ShinyHunters said it was “severely offended” that the FBI alleged that they sometimes use “exaggerated claims” to extract payments from victims. “We wish to state unequivocally our threats and claims are very real,” the group said. “Not exaggerated and never a bluff.” ShinyHunters was also upset that the FBI claimed the group conducts swatting attacks against corporate workers and makes sextortion threats. That “never” happens, ShinyHunters said.