The ShinyHunters extortion group says it will not publish or sell the FBI data it claims to have stolen, clarifying its intentions as the one-week period it gave the agency to correct or remove a disputed cybercrime report approaches its end.
In a statement sent exclusively to Hackread.com, the group said it had decided from the beginning that the alleged FBI data would not be released. The group described the publicity surrounding its FBI breach and subsequent message to the agency as a “marketing campaign” intended to draw notice to its dispute with claims made about the group in an FBI report.
“The reason why we have stated multiple times that this is not extortion is because since the very beginning we had made our decision that we would never publish this data,” ShinyHunters told Hackread.com. “We have never intended to nor have we ever planned to.”
The clarification follows the group’s September 22 attack on the FBI Jobs portal. As Hackread.com reported at the time, the group defaced the portal and claimed to have compromised other FBI systems after gaining initial access through what it described as an Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day.
The hackers later told Hackread.com that apply.fbijobs.gov was their entry point and claimed they moved laterally into other services, including AWS GovCloud infrastructure. The group claimed to have downloaded between 2TB and 3TB of information, including FBI employee and job applicant data.
The FBI later confirmed it was investigating claims of unauthorized activity affecting FBIJobs.gov and alleged exposure of employee personally identifiable information.
The One-Week Message and ShinyHunters’ Dispute With the FBI
Following the breach, the hackers published a lengthy message addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel and Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division. The group said it was responding to what it considers false allegations made by the FBI about the group.
The message specifically objected to FBI statements that ShinyHunters may exaggerate claims of access to sensitive information, use harassment tactics including threatening victims and their family members or swatting, and falsely claim to possess sensitive or compromising material. The hackers denied those activities and also rejected being associated with “The Com.”
The message gave the FBI “a time of 1 week” to correct or remove what it described as false allegations. In its original message, the group said its threats and claims were real and “never a bluff,” while insisting that its action against the FBI was neither financially motivated nor an extortion attempt.
The original message repeatedly denied financial motivation and described the episode as neither ransom nor extortion. It did not, however, specify what would happen if the FBI declined to comply after one week.
Some media reports and public discussion interpreted the one-week period as a deadline, after which the stolen FBI data would be published. The group now says that interpretation was incorrect and that it never stated what would happen when the week ended.
“We worded our statements very carefully and we never clarified nor specifically stated what we would do if the victim entity did not comply within what the public interpreted as a ‘deadline’,” the group told Hackread.com.
The group also said it deliberately declined to answer journalists who previously asked what would happen if the FBI did not comply. It also said it never referred to the one-week period as a “deadline.”
ShinyHunters Calls It a Marketing Campaign
Explaining the one-week demand, the group told Hackread.com that gaining publicity for its dispute with the FBI was part of the plan.
“This was all a marketing campaign to protect our business and actively combat disinformation,” the group said. “If we made this statement normally, then this much attention to our words and intentions would’ve never been this widespread.”
The group acknowledged that its original message could have been interpreted differently, particularly given its previous operations involving stolen corporate data.
“This was not a threat. It may have been worded like a threat, but ultimately the public has driven this story out of context and made their own wild assumptions and speculations,” the group said.
The group also acknowledged why people might expect the information to be published or sold, pointing to its own history. It said previous operations could explain why some readers interpreted the FBI message as an indication that stolen information would eventually be released.
For the FBI case, the group again denied seeking money and said it had never planned to publish the information it claims to possess.
“Nothing will happen,” ShinyHunters told Hackread.com about the end of the one-week period.
The statement does not withdraw the group’s underlying claim that it compromised FBI systems or obtained sensitive information. It changes what the hackers say they intend to do with that information.
The FBI has acknowledged investigating the alleged compromise but has not publicly confirmed the amount or full contents of the data the group claims to have obtained.
Umbreon Image by Hung Tran from Pixabay – FBI Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash)
