Infamous BreachForums shut down after owner arrest

Notorious Dark Web hacker forum BreachForums was swiftly taken offline following the arrest of the owner and administrator. 21-year-old Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, known on the site as “Pompompurin,” was arrested by FBI cybersecurity investigators at his New York home on March 15th. A few days later, the new admin known as “Baphomet” announced they would shut down the site.

The forum

Before the shutdown, Allan Liska, a senior intelligence analyst at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, described BreachForums to Bloomberg as “one of, if not the most active, hacker forums out there.” Infamous for leaking sensitive information stolen from major organizations such as the Robinhood trading platform and Acer Computers, the Dark Web forum hosted stolen databases from nearly 1,000 companies and websites. These databases contained a wealth of users’ personal information, such as email addresses and passwords. This information was frequently sold by the site users for fraudulent purposes. In November 2021, Pompompurin was interviewed by Brian Krebs and claimed responsibility for fake emails that came from an “fbi.gov” email address.

The arrest

Fitzpatrick had been on cybersecurity investigators’ radar for over a year before the ultimate arrest. Multiple people familiar with the situation told Bloomberg he was considered a significant player in the cybercrime ecosystem. Following an FBI and Homeland Security raid on his home, Fitzpatrick was arrested and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Law enforcement says that Fitzpatrick admitted ownership of BreachForums and being behind the alias Pompompurin. He has since been released on a $300,000 unsecured bond, signed by his parents, until a court appearance scheduled for March 24.

The shutdown

According to TechCrunch, Baphomet announced on the BreachForums Telegram channel that the forum would close down for good. The new admin explained that they discovered someone (likely law enforcement) had access to the server through Pompompurin’s machine. At first, they had planned to migrate to another server, but because they couldn’t confirm the forum’s safety, they decided to shut it down entirely. However, this won’t be the end for the site’s hackers. Baphomet revealed plans to start a new community with admins and operators of competitor forums.

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