FBI Director Kash Patel's Email Was Breached by Iranian Hackers

Dmitri Bolt | March 27, 2026 12:00 PM

FBI Director Kash Patel's email was reportedly breached by Iranian hackers as they published photos and documents they say were taken directly from his inbox.

JUST IN - FBI director Kash Patel's personal email address hacked, says DOJ. This comes only a day after Iran-linked Handala hacking group claims it breached the FBI: "Soon you will realize that the FBI's security was nothing more than a joke." pic.twitter.com/XeuogL8I0Y
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 27, 2026

BREAKING: Iran-linked hackers were behind the hack of FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email, per Reuters.

Details include:

1. Iran-linked Handala Hack Team has now publicly claimed ‌the breach

2. Hackers published photographs of Kash Patel and his purported resume

3. A… pic.twitter.com/P9sh9j270p
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 27, 2026

The Iranian state-backed “Handala Hack Team” is claiming to have breached FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email, posting an apparent resume and several old photos of Patel. pic.twitter.com/PHwkBrw88z
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 27, 2026

The group, called Handala Hack Team, lists Patel as a “successfully hacked victim” as DOJ officials have confirmed the breach.

From Newsweek:

Western cybersecurity researchers consider Handala to be one of several online personas used by Iranian government-linked cyberintelligence units. The group describes itself as a pro-Palestinian collective and has previously claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on U.S. companies.
The Gmail address the hackers say they accessed matches an address previously linked to Patel in older data breaches tracked by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs. A sample of the material appears to include a mix of personal and work-related correspondence dating from 2010 to 2019. The scope of the breach and how the account was accessed were not immediately clear.