A hacking group claims to have stolen more than 380 gigabytes of data from the U.S. Marshals Service, including confidential and top-secret documents and records about gangs, active cases, and electronic surveillance.
The ransomware group Hunters International took credit for the breach and posted pictures of the allegedly stolen records on its data leak site, according to the cybersecurity firm Hackmanac, which provided screenshots of the post to Gizmodo. In total, the group claims to have exfiltrated more than 327,000 files from the federal law enforcement agency responsible for tracking down fugitives and running the witness protection program. The hackers set an August 30 deadline for a ransom to be paid.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service told Gizmodo he could not yet confirm the breach’s authenticity but that the agency was looking into the claims. In addition to screenshots of what it says are gang files and active case files, which appear to contain headshots and other information about suspects, the hacking group also posted documents it claimed were from “Operation Turnbuckle.” In 2022, upstate New York media outlets
reported on a marshals operation by the same name that led to the arrest of more than a dozen drug trafficking suspects.
If confirmed, this would be the second major breach of the Marshals’ computer systems in as many years. The agency suffered a debilitating
ransomware attack in February of 2023 that crippled some of its systems for months. It’s not immediately clear whether the data Hunters International claims to have stolen is connected to that breach, said Sofia Scozzari, the CEO of Hackmanac. Cybersecurity researchers first identified Hunters International as a threat group in October 2023, about eight months after the U.S. Marshals Service ransomware attack.
gizmodo.com
