HACKERS STEAL VALUABLE INFORMATION FROM FBI

WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 23 /SRNA/ - The hacking group ShinyHunters claims to have stolen data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation /FBI/ concerning employees’ duties, including sensitive work targeting Chinese spies and Russian intelligence services.

Reuters reports that some 5,000 pages contain the names, addresses, telephone numbers, years of birth, Social Security numbers and emergency contacts of thousands of FBI employees.

The data also includes details about the tasks of certain offices and, in some cases, the units involved in intelligence, security and counterintelligence work.

The hackers claim that this represents only a small portion of the total “haul”, which they say amounts to between two and three terabytes of data.

The FBI said in a statement that the cause of the breach has not yet been determined, but that an investigation is under way.

Hackers said yesterday that they had breached the FBI’s network and stolen data on a large number of current and former FBI employees. ShinyHunters said they would retain the data until the FBI withdraws a statement it published about the group in May.

Former FBI agent Eric O’Neill said that the allegedly stolen data represented a “gold mine” for foreign intelligence services.

“China would be very interested in knowing which individuals are working against that country,” O’Neill said, adding that he believes foreign intelligence services will eagerly await an opportunity to get their hands on the data.