Alongside the images of Kash Patel, the hackers revealed a pattern of greater than 300 emails, which seem to indicate a mixture of private and work correspondence courting between 2010 and 2019
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
Iran-linked hackers have damaged into FBI Director Kash Patel’s private electronic mail inbox, publishing images of the director and different paperwork to the web, the hackers and the bureau stated on Friday (March 27, 2026).
On their web site, the hacker group Handala Hack Staff stated Mr. Patel “will now discover his identify among the many listing of efficiently hacked victims.” The hackers revealed a sequence of non-public images of Mr. Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, driving in an vintage convertible, and making a face whereas taking an image of himself within the mirror with a big bottle of rum.
The FBI confirmed Mr. Patel’s emails had been focused. In a press release, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson stated, “We’ve taken all mandatory steps to mitigate potential dangers related to this exercise” and that the information concerned was “historic in nature and includes no authorities info.”
Handala managed by Iranian govt
Handala, which presents itself as a bunch of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is taken into account by Western researchers to be certainly one of a number of personas utilized by Iranian authorities cyberintelligence items. Handala not too long ago claimed the hack of Michigan-based medical units and companies supplier Stryker on March 11, saying they’d deleted a large trove of firm knowledge.
Handala didn’t return messages. Reuters couldn’t entry its web site late on Friday.
Alongside the images of Mr. Patel, the hackers revealed a pattern of greater than 300 emails, which seem to indicate a mixture of private and work correspondence courting between 2010 and 2019.
Reuters was not capable of independently authenticate the Patel messages, however the private Gmail deal with that Handala claims to have damaged into matches the deal with linked to Patel in earlier knowledge breaches preserved by the darkish net intelligence agency District 4 Labs. Alphabet -owned Google, which runs Gmail, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
‘Make them really feel weak’
Iran-linked hackers — who initially stored a low profile after the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes in opposition to the Islamic Republic final month — have more and more boasted of their cyber operations because the battle drags on.
Along with the hack in opposition to Stryker, Handala on Thursday claimed to have revealed the non-public knowledge of dozens of defence firm Lockheed Martin workers stationed in West Asia. In a press release, Lockheed Martin stated it was conscious of the experiences and had insurance policies and procedures in place “to mitigate cyber threats to our enterprise.”
Gil Messing, chief of employees at Israeli cybersecurity firm Verify Level, stated the hack-and-leak operation in opposition to Mr. Patel was a part of Iran’s technique to embarrass U.S. officers and “make them really feel weak.”
International hackers
The Iranians, he stated, are “firing no matter they’ve.” It isn’t uncommon for international hackers to focus on senior officers’ private emails, and breaches and leaks each occur periodically. Hackers famously broke into Hillary Clinton marketing campaign chairman John Podesta’s private Gmail account forward of the 2016 election and revealed a lot of the information to the WikiLeaks website.
In 2015, teenage hackers broke into then-CIA director John Brennan’s private AOL account and leaked knowledge about U.S. intelligence officers. Comparatively unsophisticated breaches of this nature are in keeping with a U.S. intelligence evaluation reviewed by Reuters on March 2. The evaluation stated Iran and its proxies may reply to the killing of Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with low-level hacks in opposition to U.S. digital networks.
Iran-linked hackers might produce other emails in reserve. Final 12 months, one other group working underneath the pseudonym “Robert” advised Reuters it was contemplating disclosing 100 gigabytes of knowledge stolen from White Home chief of employees Susie Wiles and different figures near U.S. President Donald Trump.
Reuters has not been capable of confirm the declare and the group has not responded to messages in a number of months.
Printed – March 28, 2026 07:03 am IST