Dutch National Police arrest member of group that claimed to have hacked FBI

The FBI and the Dutch National Police jointly arrested a suspected member of the notorious cyber group ShinyHunters on Tuesday, a week after the group claimed responsibility for defacing the FBI’s jobs website and bragged that it had stolen data about FBI personnel and job applicants.

In a post on X, FBI Director Kash Patel did not identify the individual who was arrested, but referred to the person as “one of the alleged leaders” of the organization. “As we speak FBI teams are actively working with partners to obtain and execute more leads in the ongoing investigation based on this arrest,” Patel wrote.

The FBI said in a statement that it is “working around the clock to investigate the cyber incident involving FBIJobs.gov and is in regular communication with anyone who may be impacted — including multiple Bureau wide communications within 24 hours of public reporting.” The FBI also said that the investigation is ongoing.

Last week, ShinyHunters claimed in communications posted on the dark web and exchanges with multiple media outlets that it stole two to three terabytes of data related to FBI and Justice Department workers. The hackers said they used a new vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft, a human resources management program. 

In one such post last Tuesday, ShinyHunters addressed Patel and FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Brett Leatherman, saying: “We have compromised the FBI.”

The cybercriminals said they possessed sensitive information concerning nearly all FBI agents, as well as people who applied for FBI jobs. It listed criminal justice, human resources and Medlink systems among the services that were affected.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that FBI employees had received an internal email that declared the hack to be a cybersecurity incident and acknowledged that personal information of some employees had been stolen. CBS News has not independently verified the contents of the memo.