Details of thousands of US immigration agents leaked in major hack

Details of more than 41,000 personnel working for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including thousands involved in immigration enforcement, have been leaked to the public.

The leak includes names, work addresses, and phone numbers of DHS staff, including agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, along with descriptions of the work that they do for each agency.

Wednesday's leak marks the third time in recent weeks that a government agency has been targeted in leaks or hacks.

A representative of the DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The seemingly unprecedented breach of employee information was put online on Wednesday by a group called the Department of Peace alongside cybersecurity researcher and hacker maia crimew.

The information was put in a database named Icepick and shared through a website hosted by Distributed Denial of Secrets.

The groups wrote in an online statement that the goal of the leak was not meant to be a directory of every DHS agent. Rather the aim was to replace "anonymity with accountability", according to Emma Best, a co founder of DDoSecrets.

"The leak is extraordinary but deceptive in it's simplicity as it identifies the officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations, the government's hunt for leakers and the failed BlueLeaks investigation - along with key personnel in DHS's ever-escalating rendition and deportation programs," Best added.

The Department of Peace said on Wednesday that it accessed the DHS agent profiles through a single sign-on service called Okta.

Okta is a popular online security tool that organisations use to ensure that only people with access to internal platforms are logging on to them.

A spokeswoman for Okta said the company is aware of the claims being made, but said: "Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised."

Last month, the FBI was hacked with a group called ShinyHunters taking personal information about thousands of agents.

In recent days, the Federal Election Commission, which makes public political campaign donation data, was taken offline because of a suspected hacking attempt.