The group, which Western researchers believe is “one of several personas used by the Iranian government’s cyberintelligence units”, opposes US support for Israel, Reuters reported. Their cyber attacks on US entities followed a major military strike by the US and Israel that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In its press release, the DOJ cited emails in which the group sent death threats to dissidents in the US.
“We the Handala Hack Team, loyal followers of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, declare war against all enemies of Islam in the West,” the group said.
On Friday, the group confirmed on its website that the hack on Patel’s email was carried out in retaliation for the domain seizure:
Today once again the world saw the downfall of America’s so-called security giants. While the FBI proudly seized our domains and immediately announced a $10 million bounty for the heads of Handala hack members, we decided to respond to this ridiculous show in a way that will always be remembered.
The hackers claimed that their data included confidential information about Patel, but this could not be independently confirmed.
“The FBI’s so-called ‘impenetrable’ systems were brought to their knees by our team in a matter of hours,” the group said on its website. “All of Kash Patel’s personal and confidential information, including emails, conversations, documents and even classified files, is now available for public download.”
The FBI has not yet commented on the hack, and Patel has not posted about it on his X account as of the time of this writing.
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