The Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to scrub information about its employees off the Internet after it was stolen by a hacker and distributed this week.
The effort was made public by the San Francisco-based website “Indybay,” where the information was posted Feb. 8. The site subsequently received an email from FBI Special Agent Ricky Alwine. “We will follow up with any legal process you require,” Alwine wrote.
Indybay complied, replacing the data with the text of the email. In addition to 20,000 FBI employees, the data included contact details for 9,000 employees at the Department of Homeland Security.
On Wednesday, the site that originally posted the information became unavailable to people attempting to access it. The FBI has refused to comment on whether it played a role in the technical difficulties.
Officials initially sought to downplay the possibility that a successful cyberattack took place. “There is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information,” a spokesman for the Justice Department said on Monday.
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The FBI’s takedown request, headlined “Sensitive information leaked on your site,” suggests the agency has reached a different conclusion.
