Personal information of around 40,000 employees of the United States Department of Homeland Security has been exposed following a cyberattack attributed to a group of 'hackers', which has generated a "potentially dangerous breach" in its database.
In an official statement, the Department has indicated that it "is aware of the risk it poses" and has underscored that it is "working actively to address the situation efficiently", with the aim that workers "see their data duly protected".
The leaked data includes names, phone numbers and addresses of more than 40,000 agents, operatives and collaborators of the Department, among them personnel dedicated to "covert operations", according to the broadcaster NPR.
The responsible group, which has not revealed who provided it with the database, has referred to the anonymous source as the Department of Peace and maintains that the leak will make it possible to identify with greater precision Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents linked to President Donald Trump's immigration policy.
The 'hackers' have sent the information to a second collective, in charge of disseminating it on the Internet, whose founder, Emma Best, has described the leak as "extraordinary" and has highlighted that it establishes direct links between "officials responsible for supervising covert and secret operations".
More than 21,000 records correspond to ICE agents assigned to the Customs and Border Protection Office, while another 10,000 belong to ICE workers and to the Homeland Security Investigations unit.
This massive data leak, considered unprecedented, comes after recent computer attacks against the FBI. Even so, the database is not complete: it only reflects around one-fifth of the total workforce of the Department of Homeland Security, which totals just over 220,000 employees.