Shocking move by hackers

A group of hackers known as “Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters” has caused a stir by publishing the identities, phone numbers, and home addresses of hundreds of U.S. government employees. The group is part of “the Com,” an online community that includes a variety of scammers, fraudsters, and hackers.

This large-scale doxing (disclosure of personal information) targeted personnel from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) of the US government.

Shocking move

Specifically, this group used Telegram to post personal information of 680 DHS employees, more than 170 FBI email addresses and detailed information of 190 Department of Justice (DOJ) employees.

Additionally, members of the hacker group publicly demanded ransom, alluding to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) controversial statement that Mexican gangs paid to attack US agents.

Many important US government agencies have become targets of hacker groups. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock.

On the Telegram channel of the Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters group, the demands for money were sent openly and provocatively:

"Pay me, Mexico," one user posted.

"Mexican cartels contact me, we have released all the information, pay $1 million ," another message read.

The announcement comes after DHS claimed that transnational criminal organizations are paying thousands of dollars to collect and disclose personal information about U.S. agents. However, U.S. authorities have yet to provide any concrete evidence to support this claim.

Attack method

After the data was published, news site 404 Media used information collected by cybersecurity firm District 4 Labs to partially verify the leak.

The review confirmed that much of the information contained directly relates to government employees, with details of names, agencies, addresses or phone numbers matching.

Notably, the investigation also found that some of the posted addresses appeared to be the officials' home addresses, not their office addresses.

Some US agents even had their home addresses made public. Photo: ABC News.

It remains unclear how the hackers obtained the data, whether through combining information from previous distributed data leaks or by launching a new attack targeting the government.

The data leak comes amid escalating tensions over threats against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers.

DHS has repeatedly said its personnel are facing a wave of doxing and online threats. Most recently, the agency claimed that employees are “facing 10 times the frequency of threats and attacks,” and that their families are also being doxed and threatened online.

Reckless hacker group

Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters is a combination of several famous hacker groups. Among them, “Scattered Spider” is the group responsible for the large-scale ransomware attack against MGM Resorts. Combined with that is “LAPSUS$”, which is notorious for its ransomware attacks targeting major gaming companies, typically Electronic Arts (EA).

The current version of this hacker group is known for recently threatening to release customer data of the Salesforce platform, including major corporations such as Disney/Hulu, FedEx, Toyota and UPS.

LAPSUS$, the predecessor of the above hacker group, all included teenage members, but caused trouble for many large corporations such as Microsoft, Samsung, Nvidia... Photo: Cyber Kendra.

This large-scale doxing of government employees is reminiscent of a similar incident in 2016, when another hacker group called “Crackas With Attitude” posted personal information of about 20,000 FBI agents and 9,000 DHS employees.

The hackers ended their data leak with one final, provocative question: "Do you want the IRS next?"

Source: https://znews.vn/dong-thai-gay-soc-cua-gioi-hacker-post1594710.html