Computer hackers have accessed and dumped personal information of more than 9,000 Department of Homeland Security employees, and the hackers suggest they have the information of more than 20,000 FBI employees, reports Motherboard.
Breached information includes names, job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of employees.
The hacker told Motherboard they obtained the data by "compromising the email account" of an employee in the Department of Justice, though they did not expand on how the account was accessed. The hacker contacted the Motherboard reporter through the compromised DOJ account, according to the report.
The hacker then reportedly tried logging into a DOJ web portal. When the hacker ran into trouble accessing the portal, the hacker told Motherboard he called the department and said he was new and didn't know how to access the portal. "They asked if I had a token code, I said no, they said, 'That's fine, just use our one,'" the hacker told Motherboard.
Once gaining entry into the web portal, the hacker had access to documents on the local network, including a database of government workers on a DOJ intranet, according to the report.
The hacker said he had access to 1 TB of data, of which he downloaded 200 GB, according to the report.
According to The Hill, the hacker appears to be motivated by the United States' support of Palestine.
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