The Department of Homeland Security is investigating a breach of its platform, which federal, state and local governments and law enforcement agencies use to share information, with a senior lawmaker warning that leaking information could jeopardize national security.
News websites Nextgovwho first made the news of the event, and Bleeping calculator report that DHS officials are investigating a cyberattack on the Homeland Security Information Network, or HSIN, which allows government agencies and local officials to plan, coordinate and share intelligence and information about major events and respond to emergencies.
According to Nextgov, hackers broke into HSIN servers in late May and early June, potentially exposing information shared through the platform.
When contacted by email, an anonymous DHS spokesman said the department “is aware of a recent cyber incident involving a specific, unclassified, legacy information sharing environment.”
“We took immediate action to isolate the affected systems, mitigate the vulnerability and initiate a comprehensive forensic investigation,” the statement said. The investigation is ongoing and the spokesman declined to comment further.
It’s unclear what data was stolen or how much was taken, and Homeland Security did not respond to TechCrunch’s questions about the incident. A previousthea lack of security was commonly reported during 2023 disclosed that the HSIN contained personal information shared between law enforcement authorities about the surveillance of Americans.
The HSIN incident puts new scrutiny on the government’s ability to defend the cybersecurity of its own systems, after a year of deep cuts to the federal government, including Homeland Security and the CISA cybersecurity agency, under the Trump administration.
While the information shared about the HSIN is not classified, the information “is highly sensitive and its exposure would endanger national security,” said Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia who also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. in a statement.
Warner said the HSIN platform supports the World Cup matches currently taking place in the United States and was also used last year to manage the response to the collision in the air of an American Airlines jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington, DC, killing 67 people.
The identity, affiliation and motivations of the hackers who targeted HSIN are unknown, but the breach marks the latest security lapse to affect the federal government in the past year.
Since the Trump administration took office in January 2025, the federal government has been hit by several major cybersecurity breaches, including the sharing of classified information and war plans in apps like Signal that were not cleared for government use, the hacking of federal databases of Americans’ personal information by members of ElonDO’s Department of Government spill Efficiency, or aam. credentials from a CISA contractor that exposed access to government cloud systems.
Earlier this year, the FBI informed lawmakers in Congress that it had to declare a “major cyber incident” after it disclosed the phone numbers of targets under surveillance by federal agents, potentially giving those adversaries a potential advantage.
Do you know more about the DHS HSIN cyber attack? We would love to hear from you. To contact Zack Whittaker securely, contact via Signal username zackwhittaker.1337 or via email: zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com.
Updated with comment from Homeland Security.
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