Financial extortion doesn’t seem to be the group’s goal this time.
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Hacking group ShinyHunters has allegedly stolen extensive amounts of sensitive information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation that includes details about its employees and job applicants. Reuters reports that it has seen a sample of the data obtained by the attack on the agency, and 404 Media also said it received confirmation of the action from a representative of ShinyHunters. The hackers also appeared responsible for an unauthorized takeover of the FBI website earlier this week.
“We hacked the FBI. We hold data on all FBI employees and applicants,” the spokesperson told 404 Media. According to that source, ShinyHunters got the information by using a zero day exploit in the PeopleSoft program from Oracle to obtain access to Amazon Web Services’ GovCloud servers.
A statement from the FBI shared with Reuters said that the agency was aware of “a cyber-criminal enterprise group claiming a compromise of the FBIJobs.gov portal and alleged impact to FBI employee personally identifiable information” and that it is “actively and aggressively investigating the matter.”
The attackers claim to have 2-3TB of data, but the sample shared with the media appeared to contain names, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, social security numbers and emergency contact details for 5,000 employees at the FBI. The group may also have gathered details about some work assignments for agents and about some FBI units that are working on intelligence, security and counter-espionage efforts, including operations focused on both China and Russia.
Many of ShinyHunters’ previous hacks have been aimed at extortion, with actions against parties ranging from Ticketmaster to Rockstar Games in recent years. However, the rep who spoke with 404 Media claimed this move against the FBI was “not financially motivated” but rather aimed at coercing the government agency to remove or amend a previous statement made about ShinyHunters. In a report from May, the FBI said the hacking group “exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims.”