BreachForums says it will shut down following owner's arrest

Date:
Wed, 22 Mar 2023 15:14:40 +0000

Description:
New admin says BreachForums server data was likely compromised, but pledges
to return.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

It seems as if Breach Forums is going down with its captain, after all. The administrator that succeeded their now-arrested predecessor confirmed that they would be shutting the site down and starting from scratch. The decision was made after they suspected law enforcement accessed the founders device, practically compromising the entire operation.

Last week, the FBI arrested a person suspected to be Pompompurin, the founder and super-admin of Breached Forums, an underground forum where hackers and cybercriminals shared intelligence, malware , and spoils of their craft. The person, legal name Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, is currently out on bail, pending trial. He has been accused of conspiracy to commit access device fraud.

In the meantime, a person with the alias Baphomet took over the forums. The initial idea was to keep the site operational. However, in their final update on Telegram, Baphomet explained that someone accessed Pompompurins device and thus gained access to a lot of sensitive information. That made it impossible to continue: Final update

Please consider this the final update for Breached, a person with the alias Baphomet, wrote on Telegram, according to TechCrunch . 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.

While they were migrating the forums servers, Baphomet explained, they discovered evidence of someone logging in before they did.

Unfortunately this likely leads to the conclusion that someone has access to Poms machine. Any servers we use are never shared with anyone else, so
someone would have to know the credentials to that server to be able to
login. I now feel like Im put into a position where nothing can be assumed safe, whether its our configs, source code, or information about our users the list is endless, Baphomet wrote. This means that I cant confirm the forum is safe, which has been a major goal from the start of this shitshow.

While this does mean the end for Breached Forums, it doesnt mean its the end for hacker gatherings: Readm ore

Police arrest BreachForums owner on cybercrime charges

Stolen Activision data now freely available on hacking forum

These are the best firewalls around

I want to make it clear, that while this initial announcement is not
positive, its not the end. Im 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. Give 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.

What lies in the future, remains to be seen. Baphomet has also considered joining forces with competing forums, too.

While the community of Breached will die, Im going to continue conversations with some of the competitor forum admins and various service operators who reached out to me over the past few days. Im hoping to work with some of
those people to build a new community, that will have the best features of Breached, while reducing the attack surfaces we never properly addressed. As with things like this, I have no doubt our userbase may be absorbed by
another community but if there is patience then I hope to bring something
back that will rival any other community that can take our place. Here are
the best endpoint protection services right now

Via: TechCrunch



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/breachforums-says-it-will-shut-down-following-o wners-arrest


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