FBI hack exposes medical data of thousands of special agents

Cyber‑criminals claiming to have breached the FBI say they have obtained medical fitness‑for‑work records for thousands of the agency’s special agents.

The stolen files, seen by BBC News, contain blood and urine test results, doctors’ notes on conditions such as a “shellfish and banana allergy”, and references to issues like “blood in the urine” and “high cholesterol”. Each record also lists the agent’s full name, address, badge number, job title and details about spouses.

The hacking group ShinyHunters says it accessed the data on Monday by exploiting a vulnerability in an Oracle cloud storage system used by the FBI. It later posted details of the attack on its darknet site and shared sample records with journalists, alongside an extortion demand for a retraction of an FBI advisory published in May.

Experts warn the breach could enable scams, blackmail, identity fraud and impersonation of law‑enforcement officers. Etay Maor of Cato Networks noted that while passwords can be reset, medical records cannot, making the leak permanently compromising.

The FBI acknowledged the breach on Wednesday, stating it is “aggressively investigating” the incident and working to determine whether the intrusion was direct or through a third‑party provider. No comment was received from the agency on the scale of the theft, though the hackers claim the data covers around 60,000 current and former staff.

ShinyHunters has warned it will publish the full dataset in five days unless its demand is met.

Source: BBC News. Photo: Jason Gooljar / Pexels.