The ICE List website, a domain that aims to make immigrations agents accountable, is experiencing a sustained cyber attack following reports that it would publish approximately 4,500 names of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol employees.
ICE List founder Dominick Skinner reported that the distributed denial-of-service attack began Tuesday evening and continued through publication, according to the Daily Beast.
The assault involved massive simultaneous traffic from multiple IP addresses, successfully overwhelming the site's servers and preventing access.
The site had received the massive leak of names from a Department of Homeland Security insider. It was reportedly the biggest leak ever to hit the agency.
An archived version of the site's publication of the data does not appear to be affected by the cyberattack.
Skinner stated: "The IPs would be run through proxies before hitting our servers, meaning it's just impossible to track the source. An attack lasting this long is sophisticated, though." He noted that a significant portion of malicious traffic originated from Russia, likely from a bot farm operating there.
Despite possessing DDOS protections, Skinner acknowledged such attacks are difficult to fully prevent, saying: "It has happened before, and it will happen again, no doubt." His team was working to migrate servers to restore functionality.
Regarding the attack's intent, Skinner observed: "The attacker doesn't want others to access the site. But it just makes us more determined, because it is clear some people out there do not want the names of ICE and Border Patrol agents made public. Given their behavior lately, and how they are increasingly viewed negatively by the public, that's no surprise."
The leaked dataset surfaced following the January 7 fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, an unarmed mother, by an ICE agent. The information includes approximately 1,800 on-the-ground agents and around 150 supervisors, containing names, work email addresses, phone numbers, job titles, and employment background information.
Combined with previously held records covering about 2,000 federal immigration employees, the total cache now comprises approximately 6,500 individuals. Skinner indicated plans to publish "the majority" of verifiable names while excluding certain positions such as childcare workers and nurses.
Skinner characterized Good's death as "the last straw" for some staffers, contributing to the whistleblower's decision to leak the personnel information.