FBI dismisses Accenture contractor after devastating data leak

The FBI on Monday dismissed an Accenture contractor for his role in the devastating data leak that exposed sensitive personal details of thousands of Bureau employees, as a Reuters exclusive reports, based on two sources familiar with the matter. The incident constitutes one of the most serious security compromises in the federal agency’s history.

It concerns the breach that the hacker group ShinyHunters claimed in late September, declaring that it had stolen 2 to 3 terabytes of data from FBI systems, including the FBIJobs.gov portal. Reuters earlier independently verified details of more than 22 people from a sample of around 5,000 records handed over as proof — with names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, emergency contacts and assignment details.

The FBI itself had previously described the incident as a “failure of a platform managed by an external provider” (third-party vendor) — and, as Reuters’ sources show, it is precisely this contractor, employed through Accenture, who has now paid the consequences. The sources say the decision to dismiss him was taken on Monday, after a review of his role in managing the compromised platform.

The leak also exposed details of Bureau officials’ assignments, including work against Chinese and Russian espionage, drug cartels and counterintelligence units — information that has sparked widespread fear among agents for their own safety and that of their families. The hackers, for their part, have declared that they do not intend to publish the database in full, but are demanding that the FBI retract a public statement from May that portrayed them in an unfavourable light.