The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week arrested a New York man on suspicion of working BreachForums, a well-liked English-language cybercrime discussion board the place a few of the world greatest hacked databases routinely present up on the market. The discussion board’s administrator “Pompompurin” has been a thorn within the facet of the FBI for years, and BreachForums is broadly thought-about a reincarnation of RaidForums, a remarkably related crime discussion board that the FBI infiltrated and dismantled in 2022.
FBI brokers carting objects out of Fitzpatrick’s residence on March 15. Picture: Information 12 Westchester.
In an affidavit filed with the District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York, FBI Particular Agent John Langmire stated that at round 4:30 p.m. on March 15, 2023, he led a staff of legislation enforcement brokers that made a possible trigger arrest of a Conor Brian Fitzpatrick in Peekskill, NY.
“Once I arrested the defendant on March 15, 2023, he said to me in substance and partly that: a) his identify was Conor Brian Fitzpatrick; b) he used the alias ‘pompompurin/’ and c) he was the proprietor and administrator of ‘BreachForums’ the information breach web site referenced within the Grievance,” Langmire wrote.
Pompompurin has been one thing of a nemesis to the FBI for a number of years. In November 2021, KrebsOnSecurity broke the information that hundreds of pretend emails a few cybercrime investigation had been blasted out from the FBI’s electronic mail programs and Web addresses.
Pompompurin took credit score for that stunt, and stated he was capable of ship the FBI electronic mail blast by exploiting a flaw in an FBI portal designed to share info with state and native legislation enforcement authorities. The FBI later acknowledged {that a} software program misconfiguration allowed somebody to ship the faux emails.
In December, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity broke the information that hackers lively on BreachForums had infiltrated the FBI’s InfraGard program, a vetted FBI program designed to construct cyber and bodily menace info sharing partnerships with consultants within the personal sector. The hackers impersonated the CEO of a significant monetary firm, utilized for InfraGard membership within the CEO’s identify, and had been granted admission to the group.
From there, the hackers plundered the InfraGard member database, and proceeded to promote contact info on greater than 80,000 InfraGard members in an public sale on BreachForums. The FBI responded by disabling the portal for a while, earlier than in the end forcing all InfraGard members to re-apply for membership.
Extra not too long ago, BreachForums was the gross sales discussion board for information stolen from DC Well being Hyperlink, a medical insurance change primarily based in Washington, D.C. that suffered an information breach this month. The gross sales thread initially stated the information included the names, Social Safety numbers, dates of start, well being plan and enrollee info and extra on 170,000 people, though the official discover in regards to the breach says 56,415 individuals had been affected.
In April 2022, U.S. Justice Division seized the servers and domains for RaidForums, an especially standard English-language cybercrime discussion board that offered entry to greater than 10 billion client information stolen in a few of the world’s largest information breaches since 2015. As a part of that operation, the feds additionally charged the alleged administrator, 21-year-old Diogo Santos Coelho of Portugal, with six legal counts.
Coelho was arrested in the UK on Jan. 31, 2022. By that point, the brand new BreachForums had been reside for slightly below every week, however with a well-recognized look.
BreachForums stays accessible on-line, and from reviewing the reside chat stream on the positioning’s residence web page it seems the discussion board’s lively customers are solely simply changing into conscious that their administrator — and the positioning’s database — is probably going now in FBI palms:
Members of BreachForums talk about the arrest of the discussion board’s alleged proprietor.
“Wait in the event that they arrested pom then doesn’t the FBI have all of our particulars we’ve registered with?” requested one frightened BreachForums member.
“However all of us have good VPNs I assume, proper…proper guys?” one other denizen provided.
“Like pom would most definitely do a plea discount and cooperate with the feds as a lot as doable,” replied one other.
Fitzpatrick couldn’t be instantly reached for remark. The FBI declined to remark for this story.
There is just one web page to the legal grievance in opposition to Fitzpatrick (PDF), which expenses him with one depend of conspiracy to commit entry gadget fraud. The affidavit on his arrest is obtainable right here (PDF).
