Leak Site Publishes Personal Data on More Than 40,000 U.S. Homeland Security Employees

The leak website Distributed Denial of Secrets said on Wednesday that it has published data on more than 40,000 employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The material includes details about officials working in sensitive areas such as surveillance and human intelligence.

In a statement, DHS said it was "aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively." The agency said it was working to make sure its employees were properly protected and would update the public "when more information is available."

The non-profit data transparency group said the release draws on information obtained by an entity calling itself the "Department of Peace." It is the third major government data leak to make headlines in the past month. In September, the hacking group ShinyHunters claimed it had stolen a large trove of FBI data, including sensitive job details and medical information on thousands of bureau employees. Last week, the U.S. War Department faced a class-action lawsuit after a breach exposed data on millions of current and former military personnel.

The DHS data contains names, phone numbers and email addresses of employees at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other DHS component agencies. It also lists job titles and email groups, which show which agents were assigned to special operations, surveillance, computer forensics and undercover work.

Distributed Denial of Secrets co-founder Emma Best said in a statement that the hacktivist known as "maia arson crimew" built a search tool that lets the public browse the data. Best said the tool would "replace anonymity with accountability" and would help journalists, guide public records requests and strengthen congressional oversight.

The Department of Peace did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A statement included with the data said DHS employees "have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs," and expressed hope that the data "can be used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that direction." The group claimed responsibility in March for hacking DHS and posting documents about contracts with outside vendors.

Best's statement 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 told Reuters: "Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised."

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the authenticity of the entire trove. It did match personal information on six named DHS employees to credit bureau records and breach data held by the dark web intelligence platform District 4 Labs. Reuters also called three DHS employees directly and confirmed their phone numbers and other details. One said it was the first they had heard of a breach.

In several cases, the data matched information on employees' LinkedIn profiles. In others, it revealed non-public details about internal DHS organization charts, as well as previously undisclosed programs or operations.