Kash Patel had his personal email hacked by a group of Iran-backed hackers, who published photographs of the FBI director and other documents to the internet.
The group, Handala Hack Team, claimed responsibility for the security breach Friday and said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”
Among the material shared online by the group were old pictures of Patel smoking cigars and pulling silly faces while taking selfies, as well as what appeared to be a copy of his previous resumé.
A Justice Department official confirmed to Reuters that Patel’s email had been breached and said the material published online appeared to be authentic. The Independent has contacted the FBI for comment on the incident.
“The so called ‘impenetrable’ systems of the FBI were brought to their knees in a matter of hours by our team,” the hackers wrote. “All personal and confidential information of Kash Patel, including emails, documents, conversations, and even classified files, is now available for public download.”
The group claimed the attack had been in response to the FBI “proudly” seizing its domains and announcing a $10 million reward for information on its members, which it described as a “ridiculous show.”
“This is the security the U.S. government boasts about?” the hackers added.
Handala, which calls itself a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units.
Handala recently claimed the hack of Michigan-based medical devices and services provider Stryker on March 11, claiming to have deleted a massive trove of company data.
Reuters was not able to independently authenticate the Patel emails, but the personal Gmail address that Handala claims to have broken into matches the address linked to Patel in previous data breaches preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs.
A sample of the material uploaded by the hackers and reviewed by Reuters appears to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.
