Kash Patel has been director of the security agency for just over a year.Image: keystone
03/28/2026, 08:0903/28/2026, 08:09
According to media reports, the director of the US Federal Police Agency FBI, Kash Patel, has fallen victim to a hacker attack. A group with connections to Iran claimed responsibility for the cyber attack, wrote the New York Times, among others. Accordingly, photos and documents from Patel’s private email account were published on a website called “Handala”. According to the New York Times, however, the site was operated from a Russian server.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is aware that attackers were targeting Director Patel’s personal email information, a spokesman said. “The information is not current and does not contain any government data,” said a spokesman for the authority. Accordingly, the State Department is offering a reward of up to ten million US dollars for information that leads to the identification of the Iranian “Handala Hack Team”.
US government took action against Iranian hackers last week
As CNN reported, the emails date from around 2011 to 2022. These are primarily personal and business email traffic. Patel has been director of the security agency for just over a year.
Just last week, the Ministry of Justice announced a strike against Iranian hackers: several websites that were said to be connected to the Iranian secret services were blocked. The name Handala was also mentioned in this context. This year, a site with the name claimed responsibility for a cyber attack on a medical technology company based in the USA. (sda/dpa)