The email address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked emails contain photos of Patel and others
By Patrick Howell O’Neill, Margi Murphy and Myles Miller
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox and posted some of the contents online.
The emails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry and loyalty account numbers, according to a Bloomberg News review of the data.
The email address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked emails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues.
“The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on Friday. “The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information.”
Reuters previously reported the breach of Patel’s emails.
The targeting of Patel’s emails marks the latest in a string of high-profile cyber incidents playing out alongside the American and Israeli war against Iran.
The group that took responsibility for hacking Patel’s emails, Handala, is linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. The FBI suspended Handala’s website last week after the hacking group crippled the American medical technology giant Stryker Corp. The group said the Stryker cyberattack was carried out in retaliation for a suspected US bombing of an Iranian school.
The Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program is offering up to a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification of Handala Hack Team out of Iran.
The Handala hackers referenced the multi-million dollar reward on Friday when they posted a file they say contains over 320 personal emails from Patel.
“Targeting security influentials or public figures and trying to embarrass them is a form of an attack they have taken several times before in Israel,” said Gil Messing, chief of staff at Check Point.
The files provided by the hackers include hundreds of emails from a personal email account and stretch from 2010 to 2022. During that time, Patel worked as a public defender and federal prosecutor, in addition to senior roles in counterterrorism, intelligence and defense.
The emails include details about trips to Canada and Havana with Justice Department colleagues in 2012, efforts to open a tax-exempt bank account in India in 2013, and business class flights paid for by GOP donor Michael Muldoon in August 2019, when Patel was serving on the National Security Council.
The FBI didn’t respond to questions about details of the emails. Muldoon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
