Senior US law enforcement officials confirmed on Monday that the US Marshals Service suffered a security breach more than a week ago that exposed critical data.
Hackers broke into the agency's network on February 17 and seized private data relating to the agents working there as well as the people they are investigating.
The Ransomware Attack Was A Major Incident That Raised Many Concerns
The Marshals Service's public affairs chief, Drew Wade, described the ransomware attack as a "major incident," adding that the compromised system holds critical information for law enforcement.
This includes returns from legal process, administrative information, and personally identifiable information belonging to subjects of US Marshals investigations, third parties, and certain US Marshals personnel.
The US Marshals, a division of the US Department of Justice, is in charge of all law enforcement operations pertaining to the federal court system.
This entails running the federal witness protection program and moving inmates under federal custody.
A hack is regarded as a major incident if it is deemed important enough that a federal agency must immediately notify Congress.
According to The Verge, the affected system "contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, administrative information, and personally identifiable information."
Meanwhile, The agency's Witness Security Program was unaffected by the incident, therefore no program participants should not be in danger.
The US Department of Justice has already begun a forensic investigation after being informed of the incident by the Marshals Service, which has unplugged the impacted system from its network.
Fortunately, the compromised system was a "stand-alone" one, which means it is not a part of a broader government network.
Read More: Dish Network Confirms Ransomware Attack Affecting Internal Systems Outage
This Is Not The First Time The Federal Branch Has Been Targeted By A Cyberattack
The US Marshals Service declined to reveal how it was infiltrated, if it has determined who was behind the attack, or if it paid the unknown attackers' ransom demand.
Despite this, the FBI urges against paying ransom requests because doing so does not ensure that access to the data would be recovered.
"The Department's remediation efforts and criminal and forensic investigations are ongoing... We are working swiftly and effectively to mitigate any potential risks as a result of the incident," Wade claims.
This is not the first time that US Marshals has announced a data breach as it was revealed in May 2020 that it compromised the personal details of approximately 387,000 convicts.
According to Tech Crunch, included in this were the names, birthdates, residences, and social security numbers of both former and current prisoners.
It is also worth noting that this new data breach comes around after weeks since the FBI revealed that it was investigating a cybersecurity incident.
This follows on the heels of revelations that a computer system at the agency's field office in New York had been infiltrated by hackers as well.
Related Article: Activision Responds To A Data Breach That Might Have Compromised Future Call Of Duty Information
