Website that leaked thousands of ICE agents’ personal information is down after huge ‘Russian cyberattack,’ founder says
A website dedicated to leaking personal information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents were reportedly subjected to a cyberattack that its founder believes may have originated from Russia.
Netherlands-based immigration activist Dominick Skinner, said Daily Monster website falls under the ICE List cyber attack tuesday evening after notification of publication Skinner planned to release personal information on thousands of employees obtained through an informant.
Known as a Direct Denial of Service attack, a perpetrator attempts to deny access to a network or service by flooding the system with unnecessary requests in an attempt to overload it.
Skinner told Daily Monster A large number of IPs began accessing the website and most of the traffic came from Russia, leading the founder to speculate that the attack originated from Russia.
“IPs will be run through proxies before reaching our servers, meaning it is impossible to trace the source,” Skinner told the publication. “But an attack that lasts this long is complicated.”
A Netherlands-based website is personally recruiting ICE and Border Patrol personnel to combat the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda (AFP via Getty Images)
Skinner said the attack occurred as he was preparing to publicly identify the names of immigration law enforcement officials in a dataset obtained from the tipster.
The ICE List founder previously said Daily Monster He said a Department of Homeland Security tipster provided a dataset of nearly 4,500 immigration personnel following the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Some of the information in the dataset included names, email addresses, phone numbers, job titles and other background information. Skinner said he plans to make the “majority” of names public, but will make exceptions for those who work in child care or serve as nurses.
DHS criticized Skinner’s website, calling it a disgusting disclosure of personal information that “puts our officers’ lives and families in serious danger.”
Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said law enforcement is facing a 1,300 percent increase in attacks against them and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats.
“Their families are being threatened. We will not back down. Anyone who slanders our officers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” McLaughlin warned.
Because the ICE List is hosted in the Netherlands, it cannot be removed by the US government.
Skinner said the person who attacked the website “did not want others to access it.”
“But it makes us more determined because it’s clear that some people don’t want the names of ICE and Border Patrol agents to be made public,” Skinner said. Daily Monster. “Given their recent behavior and the fact that they are viewed increasingly negatively by the public, this is not surprising at all.”
The founder of ICE List said he and his team have Direct Denial of Service protection, but such attacks are difficult to prevent and are likely to happen again.
