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posted by janrinok on Thursday March 23 2023, @03:03PM   Printer-friendly

Feds Arrest Alleged BreachForums Owner Linked to FBI Hacks

Feds arrest alleged BreachForums owner linked to FBI hacks:

The FBI has arrested the person allegedly in charge of the BreachForums online hacking community, as reported earlier by Krebs on Security and Bleeping Computer. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, also known online as "Pompompurin," was arrested at his New York home on Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a pair of court filings.

In a sworn statement, the FBI agent involved in the case claims Fitzpatrick admitted to owning BreachForums at the time of his arrest and identified himself as Pompompurin. Pompompurin created BreachForums after the FBI seized RaidForums, a similar hacking site that also sold leaked information.

The hacker is implicated in a number of breaches, with many of them targeting the FBI. In 2021, Pompompurin took responsibility for a hack that sent out thousands of fake cybersecurity warnings from the FBI's email address, and is also linked to the breach of Infragard, the FBI's information-sharing program that aims to raise awareness about physical and digital threats to government organizations and independent companies.

The hacking forum was recently involved in the breach of DC Health Link

Additionally, Bleeping Computer notes that Pompompurin is connected to the 2021 Robinhood breach that exposed the information of millions of its users, as well as the leak of Twitter user handles and email addresses that occurred in November 2022.

Notorious Hacking Forum Shuts Down After Administrator Gets Arrested

Notorious hacking forum shuts down after administrator gets arrested:

Last week, the FBI arrested a man alleged to be "Pompompurin," the administrator of the infamous and popular Breach Forums. Days after the arrest, the cybercrime website's new administrator announced that they are shutting down the forum for good.

"Please consider this the final update for Breached," the new admin, known as "Baphomet," wrote in the official Telegram channel. "I will be taking down the forum, as I believe we can assume that nothing is safe anymore. I know that everyone wants the forum up, but there is no value in short term gain for what will likely be a long term loss by propping up Breached as it is."

[...] "I want to make it clear, that while this initial announcement is not positive, it's not the end. I'm going to setup another Telegram group for those who want to see what follows. You are allowed to hate me, and disagree with my decision but I promise what is to come will be better for us all," Baphomet wrote. "Ggive (sic) me 24 hours to get some rest and give thought to how we move on from here. I will be back online after that, and we will talk. I am going nowhere."

In an attached message, which was signed with Baphomet's PGP key to prove it was genuinely written by them, they wrote that they were able to confirm that the authorities have access to Pompompurin's machine.

See also: https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/police-shut-down-dark-web-crypto-laundering-service-linked-to-ftx-hack/


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2023, @03:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2023, @03:11PM (#1297761)

    The FBI also should look into companies that report a breach and then offer a 1 year subscription to data protection services. Data protection racket more like it. "Hey bud, your data got hacked from our computers - you wanna get some protection for that? Shame to lose all your data again."

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