The U.S. Department of Homeland Security emblem on the USImmigration and Customs Enforcement building, seen January 7, 2026 in Washington, DC
Heather Diehl/Getty Images North America
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Heather Diehl/Getty Images North America
A group of hackers hacked into the personnel records of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, revealing the names, phone numbers and addresses of more than 40,000 DHS officers, agents and associates, including those involved in undercover operations.
“On July 17, Markwayne Mullin said he was “turning up the pressure.” This is what happens to ICE when you do this,” a spokesperson for the hacktivist group behind the breach, the Department of Peace, said in an online statement.
The hackers said they stole the data by hijacking DHS’s single sign-on system, according to an online report. He said he distributed this material to the group Distributed Denial of Secrets, which posted it online in a database called Icepick. The Peace Ministry also shared this trove of data with Ryan Ottignon, a journalist based in the United States, and a Swiss hacker known as Maia Arson Crimew. Together, the two created a searchable database online, with crimew doing all the technical work, Ottignon told NPR.
DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best called the leak “extraordinary but deceptive in its simplicity” because it draws explicit connections between “officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations… as well as key personnel in DHS’s ever-escalating rendition and deportation programs.”
Other activists say the information will be a boon to those who investigate DHS and file Freedom of Information requests, which, due to the lack of specific information, like names and email addresses, can often yield unhelpful results.
In a statement, DHS said it was “aware of a potential violation and was actively working to remedy the situation in a timely and effective manner.” The ministry added that it was taking necessary measures to “ensure that everyone is properly protected”.
More than 21,000 records identify U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees. Another 10,000 involve employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its Homeland Security Investigations Unit.
This is an unprecedented intelligence breach, following FBI-like hacking attacks. However, the database is far from exhaustive and represents about a fifth of the Homeland Security workforce, including personnel just over 220,000 people.
Ottignon, who has worked on similar data leak projects in the past, rejected suggestions that he and others linked to the Ministry of Peace or the refusals to distribute secrets were doxing government employees.
“We’re in a situation where a group of public officials are going around cities, states and across the country and seeking to hide who they are. Very frequently, they’re using masks, wearing civilian clothes. And they’re doing universally unspeakable things to these communities,” Ottignon said. He added that he believed this kind of behavior was unacceptable in a free society.
“We need oversight for a government to be useful, if it exists at all. So this is just one step in that process of oversight,” he added.
In a note attached to the files, DDoSecrets wrote: “They have our information, so it’s only fair that we have theirs.”
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