Lionel Richie has been hospitalized again, this time for treatment of atrial fibrillation (AFib), an irregular heartbeat, TMZ reported on Tuesday. It is the 77-year-old singer’s third hospital stay since June.

Doctors performed an AFib ablation, a minimally invasive procedure that creates tiny scars in the heart to block faulty electrical signals and restore a normal rhythm. It is not considered major surgery.

“Lionel is doing great”

“The doctor said everything went perfectly… Lionel is doing great but will take some time off and will be back on stage soon,” his representative said, according to Consequence.

A difficult summer

In June, Richie became dizzy and disoriented during a concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was taken away by paramedics. In August he spent several days in intensive care in St. Louis for cardiac tests. Tuesday’s procedure is meant to address the underlying rhythm problem.

AFib is one of the most common heart-rhythm conditions, especially after age 65. Anyone with a racing or irregular heartbeat, dizziness or shortness of breath should talk to a doctor.

A cybercrime group’s claim to hold data on every FBI employee and applicant is alarming as a crime. For America’s adversaries, it could be something more: a ready-made targeting file on the people who catch spies.

TechCrunch put it directly: the theft “could present a major counterintelligence threat, where agents and their families are extorted into cooperating with a foreign government.”

A notorious hacking group says it has broken into the FBI and stolen personal data on the bureau’s entire workforce. “We hacked the FBI. We hold data on all FBI employees and applicants,” the group, ShinyHunters, told 404 Media, which first reported the claim on Tuesday, September 22.

If the claims hold up, it would be one of the most damaging breaches ever of a U.S. law-enforcement agency.

What the hackers showed

To back up the claim, the group gave 404 Media a sample of about 5,000 records. It contains names, home addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and spouse information. Axios reported that the stolen data allegedly also includes agent status, email addresses and spouses’ Social Security numbers.

404 Media checked the sample with the lookup tool OSINT Industries, which matched phone numbers to names, and another tool showed some numbers belonged to Justice Department personnel. The group also defaced FBIjobs.gov, the bureau’s recruiting site, with a message that read “this site has been seized by ShinyHunters” and claimed “All FBI data was compromised including PII/PHI,” meaning personal and health information. Screenshots of the defaced page and the sample spread quickly online.

Boston Made will not publish, link to or describe any individual’s stolen information.

How they say they got in

A ShinyHunters representative told 404 Media the group “used a zero day exploit in an Oracle product called PeopleSoft,” meaning a previously unknown flaw, in HR and recruiting software. From there, they said, they moved into Amazon Web Services GovCloud servers and downloaded two to three terabytes of data. TechCrunch described the same path, from a PeopleSoft server to a government cloud holding agents’ and applicants’ records. None of these technical claims has been confirmed by the FBI.

What they want

“This is not financially motivated,” the representative told 404 Media, adding that the group’s plans were “maybe coercion” rather than extortion. According to TechCrunch and Axios, the group is demanding that the FBI retract a published report about the group that it says contains false allegations.

The FBI’s response

“The FBI is aware of claims regarding unauthorized activity affecting FBIjobs.gov and is currently investigating,” a spokesperson said. Axios could not independently verify how authentic or recent the data is, though security researchers said the attack appears legitimate. TechCrunch noted it would be the second known breach of FBI systems this year, after earlier compromises involving wiretap systems and FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email.

What experts say

• “The data is out there and has likely been repeatedly downloaded and passed around to other threat actors,” said Allan Liska of Recorded Future (Axios).
• Andrew Brandt of Huntress warned that “employees or their families could be threatened or harmed” if criminals or nation-states get the data.
• Former FBI cyber official Cynthia Kaiser said the bureau will “marshal additional resources” to bring those responsible to justice.

For what this could mean in the hands of foreign spy services, read our Masterpass briefing on the counterintelligence fallout.