Iran-linked hackers have broken into the personal email account of FBI Director Kash Patel, publishing photos and documents they claim were stolen from his inbox, including personal travel photos and his resume.
The hacking group, which calls itself the Handala Hack Team, announced on its website that Patel would “find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”
The Gmail address the hackers say they accessed matched an address previously linked to Patel in older data breaches tracked by dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs. A sample of the material reviewed by Reuters appeared to show a mix of personal and work-related correspondence dating from 2010 to 2019. The full scope of the breach and how the account was accessed were not immediately clear.
“The so-called ‘impenetrable’ systems of the FBI were brought to their knees within hours by our team,” Handala said on its website. “All personal and confidential information of Kash Patel, including emails, conversations, documents, and even classified files, is now available for public download.”
The hack appears to be retaliation for a recent U.S. crackdown on the group. On March 19, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had seized four domains linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, including websites connected to Handala. Those sites had allegedly been used to carry out hacks against U.S. and other targets in recent weeks.
At the time, Patel issued a defiant statement, saying “Iran thought they could hide behind fake websites and keyboard threats to terrorize Americans and silence dissidents. We took down four of their operation’s pillars and we’re not done. This FBI will hunt down every actor behind these cowardly death threats and cyberattacks and will bring the full force of American law enforcement down on them.”
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