FBI Investigates Claims of Data Theft by Cybercrime Group

<p>A cybercrime group known as ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for stealing over 2 terabytes of data, including personal information about thousands of FBI employees and job applicants. The group announced this on its dark-web site on September 22, 2026.</p><p>The FBI is aware of these claims and is currently investigating the unauthorized activity affecting FBIjobs.gov, according to an FBI spokesperson.</p><p>Cybersecurity experts have noted that the theft of sensitive information about FBI personnel is particularly concerning. Cynthia Kaiser, a former official in the FBI's cyber division, stated that the bureau is likely to allocate additional resources to address this breach.</p><p>Threat intelligence analyst Allan Liska indicated that while the immediate focus may be on ShinyHunters, the long-term implications for the affected FBI employees and their families could be significant. He noted that the data may have been downloaded and shared among other threat actors.</p><p>Although Axios has not verified the legitimacy or recency of the stolen data, cybersecurity researchers have confirmed that the attack appears credible. A sample of the data obtained by 404 Media reportedly includes information about approximately 5,000 individuals, including names, FBI agent statuses, emails, phone numbers, home addresses, and in some cases, Social Security numbers of spouses.</p><p>ShinyHunters also claimed to have breached the FBI's criminal justice, HR, and other services, and stated that it defaced the FBI's jobs webpage using a vulnerability in Oracle's PeopleSoft platform. The webpage remained offline as of the afternoon of September 22.</p><p>The group has stated that its motivations are not financially driven but rather a response to the FBI's previous statements regarding their operations. In a May advisory, the FBI warned that ShinyHunters engages in harassment tactics, including threatening communications to victims and their families. ShinyHunters has denied these allegations, attributing them to confusion with other less-skilled threat actors.</p><p>Andrew Brandt, a principal threat intelligence incident commander at Huntress, expressed concern over the potential for ShinyHunters to sell the stolen data to other criminal or state-sponsored hackers, which could pose risks to the safety of the affected individuals and their families.</p>