A notorious group of hackers broke into the FBI’s website and obtained a treasure trove of information on the bureau’s “employees and applicants.”
“We hacked the FBI,” a spokesperson for the ShinyHunters hacking group told 404 Media. “We hold data on all FBI employees and applicants.”
The spokesperson added that the group now has the names, home addresses, phone numbers, and spouse information of all of the bureau’s employees. As proof, the spokesperson handed 404 Media a sample appearing to contain the personal data of 5,000 FBI employees.
A brief investigation by 404 Media found that the sample data, including names and numbers, does correspond to real people in the bureau.
ShinyHunters just defaced the FBI Jobs page pic.twitter.com/u3upEpLxvY
— vxdb (@vxdb) September 22, 2026
The hackers with ShinyHunters also temporarily defaced the FBI’s online employment portal by placing a banner on top mockingly saying that “this site has been seized by ShinyHunters.”
The defaced site also contained a stark warning: “All FBI data was compromised including PII/PHI [personally identifiable information and protected health information] on incumbent and former FBI employees and all applicant information. We have a lot more than we claim here.”
The defaced site also contained a jab at President Donald Trump that read as follows: “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
The hacking attack happened sometime Monday. According to the ShinyHunters spokesperson, they hacked the FBI’s website by using a “zero day exploit” that they found in Oracle software called PeopleSoft.
“From there, the group managed to access AWS GovCloud servers and downloaded data,” according to 404 Media. “The representative said the exfiltrated data totalled between two and three terabytes.”
What remains unclear is the purpose of the hack. While ShinyHunters usually extorts its victims for money or attention, in this case they seem to want something else.
“What we plan to do is not something I’d call extortion, maybe coercion,” the spokesperson said. “This is not financially motivated.”
This suggests the hack was motivated either by personal grievances or political grievances. Many suspect the grievances are personal.
Cybercrime group #ShinyHunters just claimed to have breached the #FBI, allegedly stealing data on thousands of bureau personnel. The twist? They claim it isn’t financially motivated—it’s personal. 🧵👇
— Prashant Singh (@LibranLifter) September 22, 2026
According to 404 Media, ShinyHunters also published a post online accusing the FBI of having made “false allegations” against the hacking group in a previously published report.
Published in May, the FBI report ripped into the hacker group, accusing it of using “real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims.”
“Victims may receive an extortion email signed as ShinyHunters,” the report read. “To exert pressure on victims, SH actors commonly use harassment strategies, sending threatening text messages and phone calls to victims and their family members, and in some cases, swatting.”
“Threat actors may falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist,” the report continued. “Following these pressure tactics, SH actors have sometimes posted exfiltrated data to various iterations of the SH data leak site on the Tor network.”
In its online post, ShinyHunters stressed to the FBI that it’s “allowing you a time of 1 week to correct” or remove the report.
Here is the full message in screenshot form. pic.twitter.com/iZo5fFDyd7
— Dark Web Informer (@DarkWebInformer) September 22, 2026
Allan Liska, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, suggested to Axios that it may be too late to stop the ramifications of the hack.
“The data is out there and has likely been repeatedly downloaded and passed around to other threat actors,” she noted.
Andrew Brandt, a principal threat intelligence incident commander at Huntress, added that ShinyHunters might sell the data it extracted.
“It doesn’t take much imagination to picture scenarios where employees or their families could be threatened or harmed by this kind of information being released,” he said.
Cynthia Kaiser, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, dissed the group in a statement to Politico.
She said that “retribution” attacks on the FBI are “very atypical behavior for ransomware gangs, but goes to show you the unpredictability and immaturity of the group.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
- Lesbian bar makes masks optional one night a week — gets accused of ‘eugenics’ - September 23, 2026
- Gaza journalist admits he hid footage of Israeli hostages being beaten - September 23, 2026
- Converse apologized for ad likened to KKK, lynching imagery — critics have a darker theory about how it happened - September 23, 2026
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.