Iran-linked hackers claim breach of FBI director's personal email

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/iran-linked-hackers-claim-breach-of-fbi-directors-personal-email-doj-official-2026-03-27/

132•m-hodges•1h ago

Comments

everdrive•1h ago

Interesting, and not all that implausible. The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.

If they wanted to maintain access, they certainly wouldn't celebrate it publicly, which is why I assume they want to release information. But, there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally. We'll see how the facts bear out. I also suppose it's possible they're just going for any win they can and there's nothing interesting here whatsoever, or it's a really boring secondary address or something.

tencentshill•1h ago

Surely we are currently clean on OPSEC. There couldn't be any precedent for government officials using private email servers for confidential information!

vessenes•29m ago

obligatory - that first famous private server was done because someone wanted a blackberry like Obama had, and was told no by NSA. Man that BB keyboard was good.

embedding-shape•1h ago

> his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.

Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?

Color me surprised if these people haven't heard of opsec before, and mix their work/personal life all over the place.

everdrive•1h ago

Yes, and I wouldn't be shocked if there was classified information in there. I struggled with wording, but what I meant was "you're not supposed to be able to find classified or sensitive information in personal email, but I who knows what will be the case here."

throwa356262•57m ago

    'Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist...'

Are people still believing that story? That leak was 110% intentional, just look at the language used during their conversation.

The whole thing looked like a digital version of a stage whisper.

embedding-shape•53m ago

> The investigation has led to turmoil within the Defense Department, raising tensions and the firings and resignations of several top DoD officials, including former Chief of Staff Joe Kasper. [...] On May 1, 2025, it was revealed that both national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong would be leaving their posts in the National Security Council

Let me guess, the "leak" was intentional just to break a bunch of laws and to cause a bunch of people to get fired and leave their posts?

dmix•45m ago

Signal started being used during the Biden administration, the issue was how they were managing contacts which could be added to groups. They weren't carefully vetting access and a journalist with the same name as another military guy was added to the group by accident.

drnick1•23m ago

> Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?

Signal is one of the most secure communication platforms out there, but it is obviously not immune to human error or social engineering.

throwaway27448•52m ago

I think this is actually the opposite of the correct conclusion—just look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal). I seriously doubt that Kash Patel doesn't have a bunch of skeletons to dust off and show the world; the man is a weirdo (much like the rest of the administration).

EDIT: I actually misread the comment; I think we're likely in agreement. My bad.

hypeatei•43m ago

There is so much corruption and impropriety in this administration that skeletons don't matter anymore. Looking at what sunk officials in previous administrations provides a sense for just how far gone we are, but it's not an indicator of what future consequences will be.

Jare•40m ago

I don't know, these days skeletons seem to be treated as funny decoration and we're in a permanent state of Halloween.

treebeard901•21m ago

Maybe the hackers will release information connecting Patel to the Noem and Lewandowski grift operations with govt contracts. Out of the four companies allowed to bid for the $220 million advertising contract, 3 were linked to Noem and Lewandowski and one to Patel.

Im sure they are all doing it...

MyHonestOpinon•16m ago

Well, if the president sets the example. What can you expect from the rest ?

close04•20m ago

> look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was

Those times have passed. I'll restate what I said in a comment some days ago:

>> 50 years ago the press was "impeaching" presidents. Today presidents are "impeaching" the press

The current strategy is "keep the outrage hose on full blast and eventually people get desensitized". It works.

BigTTYGothGF•28m ago

Those "should"s are doing a lot of heavy lifting.

firefax•26m ago

>his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA

medical diagnoses can be incredibly useful in understanding past and future actions

>there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally

that "if" is doing some heavy lifting given who we are discussing

rurp•21m ago

Are we talking about the same FBI director here? Professional and competent are not how I would describe Kash Patel. Given his overt buffoonishness and the whole administration's disdain for procedure and expertise I would be shocked if he didn't have extremely inappropriate content in his inbox.

conception•16m ago

I believe “if” is doing a tremendous amount of work in parent’s comment.

nickpinkston•1h ago

Iran... if you're listening...

We'd love to see all of those Epstein files.

shagie•30m ago

Is this a reference to

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-asked-russia-to-...

> "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," Trump said in a July 27, 2016 news conference.

CrzyLngPwd•1h ago

Where did the article go?

kevincloudsec•1h ago

Forget the Iran attribution for a second. The FBI director's personal email was already in leaked credential databases from prior breaches.

bcjdjsndon•44m ago

Every now and then something happens that makes me wonder how the fuck America is number one, this being one of them.

jorts•35m ago

Because America is a lot more than a podcaster put into a position that he has no qualifications for.

1234letshaveatw•34m ago

We're ranked number one based on the summation of all the angsty teen America bad comments on social media. At least that is the stat the press goes off of I believe

bpt3•12m ago

Loads of natural resources, no local military threats, and historically a government that stayed out of the way and allowed individuals to reap the rewards of their efforts.

The first is almost impossible to screw up, though we're really trying on the last front.

ThaDood•59m ago

If you check their telegram channel they have some humorous photos and his resume.

bcjdjsndon•49m ago

Looking good there, murica, looking good

mlmonkey•45m ago

> On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said . . . .

Anybody have a link? You know, for science ...

Edit: Apparently, just last week the DoJ snatched their domains: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-i...

megous•18m ago

not all of them, search harder

AnimalMuppet•13m ago

So, to echo the previous comment, got a link?

"Search harder" is a pretty unfriendly response to a request for a link...

macNchz•43m ago

I've been wondering if we'd see a cyber campaign emerge in this conflict. To my knowledge Iran seems to have pretty advanced cyber capabilities and increasingly fewer reasons to hold back. Gloves-off cyber war doesn't sound good to me. The US CISA already been cut back, has lost "virtually all of its top officials"^, doesn't have a permanent director, and is operating at a further reduced capacity because of the DHS shutdown.

^ https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/cisa-senior-official-...

mandeepj•29m ago

> To my knowledge Iran seems to have pretty advanced cyber capabilities and increasingly fewer reasons to hold back.

Iran isn’t alone!! They are a quad along with China, Russia, and North Korea.

Painsawman123•17m ago

that's the thing that people overlook the most in regards to this war.iran isn’t doing this on its own. Russia, China and north korea have been backing it from the start. they’re the ones helping with intel on US base locations across the Middle East, supplying drones, and working out strategies to drag things into a stalemate, plus whatever else iran needs along the way

40four•15m ago

I forget all the details but a hacker group associated with Iran already hacked the infrastructure of a major US health care tech company

derwiki•11m ago

Stryker. FWIW a friend in ER medicine said it had very very limited effect.

paxys•33m ago

A couple of DOGE teenagers were able to casually walk in and steal the entire country's social security and healthcare data (and probably more), and we were cheering them on. There is still no accountability, and it has probably already been sold to the highest bidder. So this would be the least surprising thing in the world.

firefax•22m ago

Allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment and propose that maybe DOGE did loudly what the Solarwinds paired with OPM breach did quietly years prior.

creantum•31m ago

Hacked or leaked by activists working at Google?

thejazzman•29m ago

Hacked

creantum•18m ago

Leaked

john_strinlai•12m ago

i am eagerly awaiting your evidence for this claim

mattbis•17m ago

I really want to know how they did it.. was it some terrible password?

He doesn't strike me as the kinda person even using a local password manager; like keepass.

Somebody needs to find this out.

I doubt it was gmail support... surely it could not be via his phone sim, and if he didn't have two factor on; That would be so funny.

danso•5m ago

I too am very curious about this. Even if his password was exposed and he didn’t have 2-factor auth, doesn’t Google by default ask for confirmation — e.g. texting a number or backup email associated with the account — when seeing an unrecognized device? Maybe he didn’t have any alt contact methods associated with his account?

(which might not be that unusual, he’s old enough to have opened a gmail account upon launch, before extra info hoops were put in place, and maybe he never touched his account config in the past 2 decades?

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