A suspected ShinyHunters hacker detained in Jordan is co-operating with US investigators, according to American officials. Jordanian authorities detained Saif al-Din Khader this week, two US officials and another person familiar with the matter said.
ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for a series of high-profile data breaches and recently alleged that it obtained information on every FBI employee. That claim has not been publicly verified.
The group said last month that it had stolen between two and three terabytes of data linked to FBI workers. It claimed the breach involved a previously unidentified vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft, a human resources management system.
The FBI declined to comment directly on Mr Khader’s detention. In a statement, it said: “The Bureau continues to aggressively investigate the recent Cyber incident allegedly involving ShinyHunters, having already worked with partners to arrest multiple subjects and we will spare no resource in bringing each of the responsible individuals to justice.”
It remains unclear how many other people may be involved in the alleged hacking operation.
A second suspected member of ShinyHunters, a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam, was arrested on September 15 on suspicion of belonging to the group, according to Dutch police and the FBI.
The man was already in custody when ShinyHunters claimed it had compromised an FBI jobs website. The alleged attack was publicly reported on September 22.
Dutch authorities have not named the suspect, but people familiar with the case identified him as Pepijn van der Stap. ShinyHunters has denied that he was associated with the group, saying he had “no association” with it and criticising Dutch police as incompetent.
