An unidentified foreign hacker broke into the FBI’s field office in New York in 2023 and compromised files related to the bureau’s investigation of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. According to Reuters.
The newswire cited a source familiar with the breach as well as court documents and reported that the hack took advantage of a server in the Child Exploitation Forensics Lab at the FBI’s New York Field Office that had been inadvertently left unsecured by the FBI special agent working on the case. According to a court document, the breach “involves the examination of certain files related to the Epstein investigation”.
The FBI told Reuters it was “an isolated incident” and that it restricted the hacker’s access and contained the breach. The FBI did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
A source told Reuters that the hackers did not realize they had broken into the FBI until agents asked them to join a video call, where they showed the hackers their credentials.
