(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Hackers have taken between two and three terabytes of data from the FBI in a massive cyberattack, according to the tech publication 404 Media.
The hackers, known as the ShinyHunters, reportedly took the personal information of thousands of FBI employees—including their names, home addresses, phone number, and information on their spouse—as well as other untold information. ShinyHunters shared a sample of 5,000 FBI agents with 404 Media to prove that it really did hack the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency.
“ShinyHunters said the group used a zero day exploit in an Oracle product called PeopleSoft,” 404 Media reported. “From there, the group managed to access AWS GovCloud servers and downloaded data. The representative said the exfiltrated data totalled between two and three terabytes.”
Additionally, ShinyHunters defaced the FBI jobs website, which was still down at the time of this article’s publication.
New: hackers say they have data on all FBI employees and spouses. I got a sample of 5,000 alleged employees, including name, physical address, phone number, and in some cases spouses. Could be a massive national security and counterintelligence risk https://t.co/4mHiUW54PS
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) September 22, 2026
An FBI spokesperson told 404 Media that it is “aware of claims regarding unauthorized activity affecting FBIjobs.gov and is currently investigating.”
The FBI has been hacked before in recent years. Headline USA was the first English-speaking outlet to report on the hacker accessing the “Epstein files” in 2023 on the day of the Super Bowl—an incident that resulted in roughly 100 terabytes of data being lost forever.
Reuters added additional details about the 2023 hack in March, reporting that the hack was perpetrated by a foreigner.
“The intrusion was carried out by a foreign hacker who did not appear to realize they had penetrated a law enforcement server. The hacker expressed disgust at the presence of child abuse images on the device and left a message threatening to turn its owner over to the FBI,” Reuters reported in March, citing an anonymous source.
Reuters added that it’s still unclear who the hacker was, what country they were operating from, what they did with the material accessed, or whether any effort was made to identify or punish them for breaking into the FBI’s server. The FBI told Reuters that the hack is still under investigation.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
