The FBI together with a coalition of worldwide regulation enforcement companies seized the infamous cybercrime discussion board BreachForums on Wednesday.
For years, BreachForums has been a preferred English-language discussion board for hackers and cybercriminals who wished to promote, promote, and commerce stolen knowledge. Only in the near past, a menace actor marketed Dell clients’ private info and knowledge stolen from a Europol portal.
BreachForums has confirmed resilient. Final 12 months, authorities seized a earlier model of the positioning, three months after arresting its administrator, Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, aka pompompurin. After that, somebody going by the web deal with Baphomet took over and re-established the positioning, which had three totally different domains during the last 12 months, based on the FBI.
The FBI didn’t reply to TechCrunch’s request for remark. Division of Justice spokesperson Joshua Stueve declined to remark.
In contrast to the earlier website seizure, this time the feds additionally took management of the discussion board’s official Telegram channel, in addition to the channel of one of many website’s directors, Baphomet.
Each Telegram channels displayed the identical message from the FBI, asserting it took management and that it was “reviewing the positioning’s backend knowledge.”
“If in case you have info to report about cyber legal exercise on BreachForums, please contact us,” the message concluded, with a hyperlink to a devoted FBI web site the place victims and members of the discussion board can ship the feds details about the previous cybercrime discussion board.
“From June 2023 till Might 2024, BreachForums (hosted at breachforums.st/.cx/.is/.vc and run by ShinyHunters) was working as a clear-net market for cybercriminals to purchase, promote, and commerce contraband, together with stolen entry units, technique of identification, hacking instruments, breached databases, and different unlawful companies,” the FBI wrote on the web site.
ShinyHunters, one other BreachForums administrator, didn’t return a Telegram message requesting remark.
At this level, it’s unclear how the authorities took management of the Telegram channels. One risk is that the FBI arrested Baphomet and took management of his units, or that Telegram responded to a authorized order from the authorities.
Telegram didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Fitzpatrick, the earlier BreachForums administrator, pleaded responsible to federal fees final July.
