- A hacktivist group has hacked the US Department of Homeland Security.
- The group allegedly stole a document containing contracts between ICE and private companies
- The stolen data has been published online.
A hacktivist group claimed to have broken into systems belonging to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and exposed sensitive files online.
The group, calling itself the “Department of Peace,” stole data from the Office of Industrial Partnership containing contracts between DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and more than 6,000 private companies.
Among the companies contracted to work alongside DHS and ICE are Anduril, L3Harris, Raytheon, Palantir, Microsoft and Oracle.
The Department of Peace
The files stolen by the Department of Peace have been published online by the non-profit transparency collective, DDoSecrets. The site claims that the documents include:
- Company names
- Company URL
- Names of various employees and sometimes their titles.
- Business and potentially personal addresses
- Employee phone numbers
- Employee email addresses
- Tax identification numbers, including employer identification numbers and potentially SSN
- Other government contractor identifications, such as UEI numbers and CAGE codes
- Some internal comments from DHS staff on things like updates to previous information
The justification for the hack relates to the murder of two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renée Good, at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. A statement from the hackers accompanying the data reads: “Why hack DHS? I can think of a couple of good reasons! I’m posting this because DHS is killing us and people deserve to know which companies support them and what they’re working on.”
The hackers included an additional statement: “To DHS: You are not increasing the security of our homeland nor are you safe yourselves. How does it feel to be persecuted? To contractors: You wage war just to make money. I do this for free. How does it feel to be spied on?”
Contract information stolen from DHS has been hosted online by security researcher Micah Lee and can be filtered by contractor and monetary amount.
Under the Trump administration, federal DHS and ICE agents have launched one of the most aggressive deportation campaigns in which numerous American citizens have been illegally detained and numerous people deported without due process.
Detention centers on US soil have been criticized for having inhumane conditions due to overcrowding. The United States has also used external detention centers and prisons with alleged human rights abuses, including sexual abuse and torture, such as the Cecot prison in El Salvador.
DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Any updates will be posted here.
Via TechCrunch
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