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Hacker Leaks Records for More Than 41,000 Homeland Security Staff in Icepick Archive

Names, job titles, email addresses, cell phone numbers and office locations for more than 41,000 Homeland Security staff were published online on Wednesday after a hacker stole the data in an undisclosed breach earlier this year, TechCrunch and the BBC reported.

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Hacker Leaks Records for More Than 41,000 Homeland Security Staff in Icepick Archive

Key points

  • Personally identifiable information for more than 41,000 people who work for the US Department of Homeland Security was published online on Wednesday, after a hacker stole it in a breach at the…
  • The leaked records include names, job titles and work contact information, including email addresses, cell phone numbers and office locations, TechCrunch reported.
  • A hacker using the handle Department of Peace claimed they obtained the data from an Okta single sign on system used by Homeland Security to let employees and contractors log in to its central…

Personally identifiable information for more than 41,000 people who work for the US Department of Homeland Security was published online on Wednesday, after a hacker stole it in a breach at the department earlier this year that had not been disclosed before.

The leaked records include names, job titles and work contact information, including email addresses, cell phone numbers and office locations, TechCrunch reported. The people affected include border and immigration agents, cybersecurity staff and senior department officials. TechCrunch put the total at more than 40,000 people, and other reporting put the dataset at more than 41,000 personnel records. The total is about one fifth of the department workforce, which is around 220,000 staff.

A hacker using the handle Department of Peace claimed they obtained the data from an Okta single sign on system used by Homeland Security to let employees and contractors log in to its central network. That claim is the hacker claim, and it has not been confirmed by the department. Okta, reached by TechCrunch, said it was aware of the report and that there was no evidence its data or systems were compromised. An Okta spokesperson said: "Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised."

Where the records come from

More than half of the dataset, some 21,000 records, relates to US Customs and Border Protection employees who work at airports and other ports of entry. About 10,000 records relate to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its Homeland Security Investigations unit, and just under 1,000 relate to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Thousands more relate to Homeland Security headquarters and other agencies, including about 6,200 for US Citizenship and Immigration Services in WIRED reporting, and records for the Federal Protective Service.

The stolen data was provided to maia arson crimew, who shared a copy with Distributed Denial of Secrets. The published archive is called Icepick. TechCrunch verified a portion of the data as authentic by matching the names of several known Homeland Security employees against an offline copy of the database. The records appear to have been taken around mid August, according to timestamps on each record, and WIRED gave the records as last updated on August 19, 2026.

In a note left with the data, seen by TechCrunch, Department of Peace said: "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs."

What else the dataset shows

The dataset also exposes more than 55,000 internal permission group names. Dozens reference Penlink, including a Penlink PLX group with more than 2,000 users in Homeland Security Investigations, and one group includes more than 200 Customs and Border Protection users linked to Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app. About 4,500 users are in a group called Headspace_users. Headspace said it has not provided services to the department since 2023.

The BBC reported that the leak included dozens of previously unknown operation names, the agents who led them, and technology provided by Cellebrite and Palantir, and said it was the third time in recent weeks a government agency had been targeted. TechCrunch reported this is the second Homeland Security breach this year, after the same hacker claimed to have taken thousands of department contracts. It is unclear whether the weakness has been fixed.

Homeland Security did not immediately respond to TechCrunch or the BBC. No leaked personal data is published in this article.

Timeline

  1. Aug 19, 2026Homeland Security employee directory records in the leaked dataset were last updated on this date, according to WIRED reporting on the record timestamps.
  2. Oct 28, 2026TechCrunch reports that a hacker stole personnel data for more than 40,000 Homeland Security staff in a breach earlier this year.
  3. Oct 28, 2026The stolen dataset, called Icepick, is published online through Distributed Denial of Secrets, with more than 41,000 records reported in total.

Sources