Details of more than 41,000 people working for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been published online, including thousands involved in immigration enforcement. The leak appeared on Wednesday, 2026-10-28, and is the third time in recent weeks that a government agency has been hit by a leak or hack.
The exposed records include names, work addresses and phone numbers, along with descriptions of the work staff carry out for each agency. They cover personnel at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to the data, more than 21,000 of those listed work for CBP, and nearly 6,600 work for ICE. Other records name agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The material also names dozens of previously unknown operations, the agents who led and worked on them, and some of the technology used, including tools supplied by Cellebrite and Palantir. The information was placed in a database called Icepick.
A group calling itself the Department of Peace obtained the data from DHS. Journalist and cybersecurity researcher maia crimew, together with the website Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), then made it public. The groups said in an online statement that the release was not intended as a directory of every DHS agent, but as a way to replace "anonymity with accountability," according to DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best.
Best described the leak as "extraordinary but deceptive in its simplicity," saying it identifies officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations, the government's hunt for leakers and the failed BlueLeaks investigation, as well as key personnel in DHS's deportation and rendition programs. BlueLeaks refers to a large 2020 leak of US police data, which DDoSecrets also hosted.
A DHS spokesperson said the agency is "aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively." The spokesperson added: "We take all security threats against our employees and officers seriously and will work to ensure all are properly protected," and said the public would be updated when more information is available.
The Department of Peace said it reached the agent profiles through Okta, a single sign-on service that organisations use to make sure only authorised people can log on to internal platforms. A spokeswoman for Okta said the company is aware of the claims but stated: "Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised." The group's spokesperson also linked the hack to remarks by Markwayne Mullin, who became Secretary of Homeland Security in March, writing that on July 17th he said he was "turning up the heat" and that "this is what happens to ICE when you do that."
Other recent incidents include a hack of the FBI last month by a group called ShinyHunters, which took personal information about thousands of agents. In recent days, the Federal Election Commission, which publishes political campaign donation data, was taken offline because of a suspected hacking attempt.
The leak comes as public backlash to US immigration enforcement has grown under the Trump administration's push for far more arrests and deportations. Immigration operations this year have repeatedly turned violent, with ICE agents shooting at more than two dozen people and killing at least nine, including Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota, neither of whom was the target of an arrest. ICE agents often wear masks and sunglasses and rarely identify themselves, despite a legal requirement to do so. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the US has carried out nearly 1 million deportations since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, and more than 70% involved people with no criminal record.
