"New York Man Arrested for Running BreachForums Cybercrime Website"

A New York man accused of running the popular cybercrime forum BreachForums has recently been arrested and charged.  He is believed to be Pompompurin, an individual whose online moniker was mentioned in several high-profile hacking stories in the past years.  The suspect is 21-year-old Conor Brian Fitzpatrick of Peekskill, New York.  According to court documents filed last week, he was arrested on March 15 on conspiracy to commit access device fraud (i.e., hacking) charges.   A testimony from an FBI agent revealed that when he was arrested, Fitzpatrick admitted to using the Pompompurin moniker online and being the owner and administrator of BreachForums.  BreachForums, also known as Breached, was launched in 2022, just as the RaidForums cybercrime marketplace was taken down as part of a global law enforcement operation.  Pompompurin created BreachForums as an alternative to RaidForums.  BreachForums was hosted on the surface web, with much of the information on the site being accessible to anyone.  The website is currently inaccessible.  Before it went offline, one of the forum’s other administrators posted a message saying that he had the access necessary to protect the site’s infrastructure and users.  He claimed that he had restricted Pompompurin’s account to prevent unauthorized administrator actions and that he had been keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity.  Many BreachForums users expressed concerns that their information may have been obtained by law enforcement.  Before it was taken offline, the forum had over 330,000 members, 47,000 threads, and nearly one million posts.  BreachForums was used in the past months to announce several high-profile cyberattacks, including the recent DC Health Link breach, which involved the sensitive personal data of members of the US House and Senate getting compromised. 

SecurityWeek reports: "New York Man Arrested for Running BreachForums Cybercrime Website"