FBI Director Kash Patel’s tenure took another hit this week after it was learned that hackers likely used agency servers to breach employee data across the Justice Department.
Francey Hakes, who leads the Justice Department’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, sent the warning in a memo Friday, Politico reported Tuesday.
The memo, sent to “select” employees of U.S. attorney offices, warned that some employees there may have had their personal information stolen in the same hack. The jobs portal the hackers breached holds background check data on Justice Department employees and job applicants, the memo said.
FBI investigators determined in September that the jobs portal hack was a “major” cyber incident, according to Politico. Hackers stole Social Security numbers, birth dates, phone numbers, addresses, and emergency contacts for thousands of FBI agents, the outlet reported.
The cybercriminal group ShinyHunters claimed credit, Politico reported. In late September, the FBI told its workforce it was assuming the hackers had stolen data on every employee.
The new memo has heightened concerns among Justice Department employees that the stolen data could be used to harm federal workers, according to Politico.
“There are violent criminals with axes to grind against prosecutors, FBI agents and other people involved in criminal investigations,” a Justice Department prosecutor who requested anonymity told Politico. “And if this leak expands to all FBI background checks, that means there’s information about where prosecutors and their families live, and their names. So the biggest concern is safety.”
“The FBI is working diligently to analyze the data and validate the contact information of individuals impacted by this compromise to enable prompt notifications,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
But the department declined to say how many people had been notified, and an FBI spokesperson did not respond to Politico’s request for comment.
A bureau review claimedthat a contractor had failed to install a security fix on the targeted system, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Brett Leatherman announced in October.
“The FBI has removed the contractor and taken all necessary steps to … protect our workforce,” Leatherman said.
But a 2014 federal law makes the head of each agency responsible for securing information systems “used or operated by an agency or by a contractor of an agency.” Under that rule, hiring a contractor does not shift responsibility away from the agency.
In March, Iran-linked hackers broke into Patel’s personal email and published photos of him and more than 300 emails, Reuters reported. The FBI said that data was “historical in nature and involves no government information.”
Since March, hackers have taken Patel’s own emails and data on the people who work for him, and Friday’s memo warns that the list of exposed workers may be longer still.
The breach lands on a director already taking criticism from a Republican senator and right-wing voices that supported his shake-up of the bureau.
Government protection for Patel’s girlfriend has also drawn “criticism from some of the same right-wing online personalities” who backed his effort to shake up the bureau. The FBI has argued that she faces death threats.
“[W]hy didn’t you just say what planet did you parachute in from?” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Patel at a September hearing, referring to the official who recommended loosening the FBI’s hiring rules.
Patel has said the change, which ended an automatic hiring ban tied to bestiality in some cases, was designed to protect victims.
For Justice Department employees affected by the latest breach news, precautionary notices are going out on a rolling basis, with formal notices to follow as the FBI confirms each person’s data, the department said.
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