BreachForums, a popular cybercriminal platform, is shutting down after a new administrator discovered that law enforcement may have accessed its backend.
The previous administrator, Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, was allegedly arrested and charged with running the site, according to court documents.
Fitzpatrick is accused of being the hacker known as pompompurin, the leading administrator of BreachForums. In an update posted on Tuesday, the new administrator, who has not been identified, said they are shutting down the platform and redirecting the site’s domains to a new one.
They also plan to run a new Telegram group for those interested in creating a successor platform for cybercriminals.
The new administrator wrote that someone was able to access the backend of the platform through Fitzpatrick’s account on Sunday afternoon, leading them to believe law enforcement may have access to the site’s source code and information about the forum’s users.
They added that any servers used by BreachForums were never shared with anyone else, so someone would have to know the credentials to that server to be able to login. The new administrator said they can’t confirm the forum is safe, which has been a major goal from the start of this situation.
BreachForums became the go-to site for cybercriminals to purchase stolen data and market troves of information leaked during hacks and attacks.
The forum was most recently in the news after hackers posted data stolen from Washington, D.C.’s healthcare exchange platform on the site, including the sensitive information of Congress members and staff.
At least 17 current or former members of Congress had personal information exposed in the hack alongside more than 56,000 people, according to Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY).
The new administrator of BreachForums plans to work with competitor forum admins and various service operators to build a new community that will have the best features of BreachForums, while reducing the attack surfaces they never properly addressed.
