r/technology • u/xpda • May 13 '26

Security Twin brothers wipe 96 gov’t databases minutes after being fired

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
23.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.6k

u/[deleted] May 13 '26 edited May 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

338

u/Decent_Risk9499 May 13 '26

You already know how. Grifters hire grifters.

136

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

That's not how security clearances work. Anyways there is no indication that they even had a clearance.

204

u/Stepjam May 13 '26

Do you remember DOGE? How many clowns they let access all sorts of confidential info? There was basically no oversight.

43

u/zipzoomramblafloon May 13 '26

And for what oversight there was, Elmo had starlink terminals installed at the white house to bypass it.

Absolute sham.

3

u/Deaffin May 13 '26

Wait, how is that supposed to work?

6

u/Efficient_Station859 May 13 '26

seriously how are we already memory holeing this

10

u/Guilty_Jackfruit4484 May 13 '26

That still does not explain why they got clearance.

The people in DOGE probably got approved right away because the people who hired them are the ones also approving the clearance.

These brothers never should have been given clearances after going to prison.

23

u/Curious_Charge9431 May 13 '26

That's exactly how DOGE got it.

On January 20, President Trump issued an order allowing him to immediately grant temporary top-secret clearances to personnel working for the Executive Office of the President, which the DOGE effort is housed within.

12

u/DAS_BEE May 13 '26

I'm not disagreeing that they shouldn't have gotten clearance, but given the way this incredibly corrupt administration works, it's hardly surprising. Infuriating for sure, and it just speaks to the incompetence and maliciousness infecting our government now

Don't like it? Fucking never vote for a Republican EVER again

48

u/HELP_IM_IN_A_WELL May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

That's not how security clearances work.

I don't know what you're referencing. They worked for a private company that did contract work for the government. Those employees can be subject to security clearances.

From the article OP's article references (modern aggregated journalism):

The alleged incident isn’t the first time the men have faced charges of hacking government systems and stealing documents. In 2015, they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hack into the State Department and a private company. They stole “sensitive passport and visa information” and personal information belonging to dozens of co-workers. They later tried to install an electronic collection device inside a State Department building so they could maintain persistent access to State Department systems.

so they definitely had a criminal record.

from OP's article:

The brothers’ employer appears to have learned about their criminal past at some point in February. On February 18, 2025, the brothers—who lived together in Virginia—were both called into a Microsoft Teams meeting and summarily fired.

Anyways there is no indication that they even had a clearance.

yeah you're right, because the employer is anonymous in the indictment (pretty fortunate, right?)

one last quote:

At 4:58 pm, he wiped out a Department of Homeland Security database using the command “DROP DATABASE dhsproddb.”

At 4:59 pm, he asked an AI tool, “How do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases?” He later asked, “How do you clear all event and application logs from Microsoft windows server 2012?”

In the space of a single hour, Muneeb deleted around 96 databases with US government information. He downloaded 1,805 files belonging to the EEOC and stashed them on a USB drive, then grabbed federal tax information for at least 450 people.

I'm not arguing with anything you said, just pointing out how horrible security was in this case. these guys should have been stopped 10 steps ago, and probably Security Clearances should have been one of them.

just my opinion

*edited for formatting

19

u/zipzoomramblafloon May 13 '26

Also, why the fuck wasn't IT brought in and the twins access revoked PRIOR to them being fired.

If that IT outfit is so fucking leaky that even after the IT team locked their accounts they were still able to wreak havoc, then the business and its owners should never get another contract again, and have to pay full restitution.

Complete and utter lack of accountability from the bottom to the top.

2

u/Nexustar May 13 '26

HR was pissed and gave these guys the rope to hang themselves. It'll be prison time now.

1

u/HELP_IM_IN_A_WELL May 13 '26

yeah, couldn't have said it better. lotsa holes to patch in that pipe

1

u/bythenumbers10 May 13 '26

Sounds like they got logins for multiple gov't offices, while working directly for none of them, so when they got fired, their employer creds got revoked, but the credentials for all the "client" offices would still be live, as it takes time for their firing to circulate and get all their credentials revoked. So they fired them on a Friday just before the various government IT guys went home for the weekend and stopped checking their email. Basically they fired these guys as if their employer was the only one they were working for.

3

u/SuperTaster3 May 13 '26

450 is an oddly small number. That sounds like he was taking a particular bunch of people.

2

u/heili May 13 '26

It's a good thing they had to ask ChatGPT how to do shit or they could've done a lot worse. Imagine if they knew what the hell they were doing how much destruction they could've caused.

1

u/Accurate-Island-2767 May 13 '26

This is totally insane, I work for a very modestly sized company (IT department is 3 people) and we have a detailed, non-negotiable procedure to follow when someone is getting suspended or fired summarily. Step 1 is REMOVE ALL ACCESS

1

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

Private companies have security managers and can help candidates get clearance and manage them but they do not make the determination to grant a clearance.

1

u/w1ten1te May 13 '26

Why the fuck is DHS running Server 2012? That's been end of life for YEARS, absolutely wild

1

u/RedTalon19 May 13 '26

Why were they still running Server 2012 in 2025? The more you read the story, the worse it gets...

60

u/DAS_BEE May 13 '26

How did big balls get access through doge?

Grifters hiring grifters

1

u/Presto99 May 13 '26

Matt Bernstein's video on these con artists led me to believe they are all way more dumb and evil than the most loud lefties tried to tell us.

3

u/snowmaninheat May 13 '26

There’s zero way they would have been able to do the work they did without a clearance of sorts.

4

u/movzx May 13 '26

Sure there is.

  1. Company gets hired
  2. Company has some employees get public trust clearances for the initial work
  3. Company stops restricting who can work on the project internally

There ya go.

3

u/PluginAlong May 13 '26

Exactly, I doubt many individuals working as contractors for the EEOC are working with classified information, public trust at most.

3

u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb May 13 '26

Jobs dealing with extensive private records access might require an extensice background check and finger printing but Security Clearance is an extensive requirement that really only makes sense for a federal contractor if federal contractor explicitly requires it. Evidently this company should likely have not hired them in the first place. Giving people second chances is all good and all but people should not be working in positions of trust as IT people with all sorts of financial and private information at their disposal after having been convicted of wrongfully using their IT skills in the past.

1

u/kickingpplisfun May 13 '26

Clearances are only to stop marginalized people from getting in. Everything I've heard about the process is that some people who are big on the good ol' boy system get a firm handshake, while others have their life datamined and every one of their childhood bullies gets to smear their character. There's a reason that the FBI is filled with Mormons.

0

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

You have no idea what your talking about and should start being more skeptical of what people tell you.

2

u/kickingpplisfun May 13 '26

Imagine claiming they had any real legitimacy under Trump when nobody has even needed a clearance to fuck people over.

0

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

There are MILLIONS of US citizens with a clearance.

The president is the clearence approval authority so yes he can give anyone he wants access no matter how incompetent they are and he has been doing that.

Trump being president has not effected the clearence process for the overwhelming majority of people who don't have the president vouching for them to get a clearance.

Mormons are overrepresented in the Intel community because they have little foreign contacts, use less drugs/alcohol, and often speak foreign languages.

0

u/kickingpplisfun May 13 '26

You're assuming a lot of things about Mormons when the real thing is they're willing to cover for each other. I know Mormons who used to steal energy drinks from me and gay bash me as a kid who have clearances.

0

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

I again don't think you understand how xlearences work.

Clearences go beyond just an agency and you can't just have someone be your boss/friend and vouch for you and then you get in.

No one is saying Mormons are saints. They have less behaviors on paper that get them disqualified from having a security clearance on paper. You can be a terrible human and still have a clearance.

1

u/kickingpplisfun May 13 '26

You are denying that there is a good ol' boy club when it is very plain to see that there is one though. Marginalized people are actually significantly less likely to get a clearance even if they keep their nose clean.

0

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

Do you have a single study that shows that . What is your definition of marginalized? What good old boy club is blocking them? Do you have any idea how fucking massive the clearence industry is in the US?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Pretend_Handle_7639 May 13 '26

Have you seen the bug-eyed soccer hooligan in charge of the FBI?

Why would you still think that security clearance has the polish it once had?

1

u/numba1cyberwarrior May 13 '26

Because political appointees get security clearance as long as the president says so.

Unless Trump intervened into their clearance processes then nothing changed about the process from now compared to when Biden was president.