The FBI along with an alliance of international law enforcement agencies took over the notorious cybercrime forum BreachForums on Wednesday.
For years, BreachForums was a popular English-language forum for hackers and cybercriminals looking to advertise, sell and trade stolen data. Just recently, a threat actor advertised the personal information of Dell customers and data stolen from a Europol portal.
BreachForums has proven to be resilient. Last year, authorities seized an earlier version of the site, three months after the arrest of its administrator, Connor Brian Fitzpatrick, also known as pomboburin. After that, someone monitoring the Baphomet email address took over and refounded the site, which had three different domains over the past year, according to the FBI.
When reached by TechCrunch for comment, FBI spokeswoman Samantha Shero declined to comment. Justice Department spokesman Joshua Stueve also declined to comment.
Unlike the previous seizure of the site, this time the feds also took control of the forum’s official Telegram channel, as well as the channel of one of the site’s administrators, Baphomet.
Both Telegram channels displayed the same message from the FBI, announcing that it had taken control and was “checking the site’s support data.”
“If you have information to report about cybercriminal activity on BreachForums, please contact us,” the message concluded, with a link to a dedicated FBI website; where victims and forum members can send the feds information about the former cybercrime forum.
“From June 2023 to May 2024, BreachForums (hosted at breachforums.st/.cx/.is/.vc and operated by ShinyHunters) operated as a clear marketplace for cybercriminals to buy, sell and trafficking in contraband, including stolen device access, identification media, hacking tools, compromised databases and other illegal services,” the FBI wrote on the website.
ShinyHunters, another BreachForums administrator, did not return a Telegram message seeking comment.
At this point, it is unclear how the authorities took control of the Telegram channels. One possibility is that the FBI arrested Baphomet and took control of his devices, or that Telegram responded to a legal order from the authorities.
Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.
Fitzpatrick, the previous administrator of BreachForums, pleaded guilty to federal charges last July.
UPDATE, May 15 4:49 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to add the FBI’s “no comment.”
