BreachForums | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick has been sentenced to time served and 20 years of supervised release for his role as the creator and administrator of BreachForums. Fitzpatrick, who went by the online alias "pompompurin," was arrested in March 2023 in New York and was subsequently charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and possession of child pornography. He was later released on a $300,000 bond, and in July 2023, he pleaded guilty to the charges. BreachForums was a major cyber crime marketplace that facilitated the trafficking of stolen data since March 2022. Prior to its shutdown exactly a year later, the website boasted of over 340,000 members. Among the stolen items commonly sold on the platform were bank account information, Social Security numbers, personally identifying information (PII), hacking tools, breached databases, and account login information for compromised online accounts with service providers and merchants. BreachForums also advertised servic

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick , the owner of the now-defunct BreachForums website, has pleaded guilty to charges related to his operation of the cybercrime forum as well as having child pornography images. The development,  first reported  by DataBreaches.net last week, comes nearly four months after Fitzpatrick (aka pompompurin) was  formally charged  in the U.S. with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and possession of child pornography. BreachForums, launched in March 2022, operated as an illegal marketplace that allowed its members to trade hacked or stolen databases, enabling other criminal actors to gain unauthorized access to target systems. It was shut down in March 2023 shortly after  Fitzpatrick's arrest  in New York. As many as 888 databases consisting of 14 billion individual records are estimated to have been found in total. The forum had over 333,000 members prior to its takedown. "The purpose of BreachForums, and Fitzpatrick's intent in operating the f

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Open source media player software provider Kodi has confirmed a data breach after threat actors stole the company's MyBB forum database containing user data and private messages. What's more, the unknown threat actors  attempted to sell  the data dump  comprising 400,635 Kodi users  on the now-defunct  BreachForums  cybercrime marketplace. "MyBB admin logs show the account of a trusted but currently inactive member of the forum admin team was used to access the web-based MyBB admin console twice: on 16 February and again on 21 February," Kodi  said  in an advisory. The threat actors then abused the account to create database backups that were then downloaded and deleted. Also downloaded were existing nightly full backups of the database. The account in question has now been disabled. The nightly backups contained all public forum posts, team forum posts, messages sent through the user-to-user messaging system, and user information such as forum username, email a

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, the 20-year-old founder and the administrator of the now-defunct BreachForums has been  formally charged  in the U.S. with conspiracy to commit access device fraud. If proven guilty, Fitzpatrick, who went by the online moniker "pompompurin," faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison. He was  arrested  on March 15, 2023. "Cybercrime victimizes and steals financial and personal information from millions of innocent people," said U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia. "This arrest sends a direct message to cybercriminals: your exploitative and illegal conduct will be discovered, and you will be brought to justice." The development comes days after Baphomet, the individual who had taken over the responsibilities of BreachForums,  shut down the website , citing concerns that law enforcement may have obtained access to its backend. The Department of Justice (DoJ) has since confirmed that it co

In a sudden turn of events, Baphomet, the current administrator of BreachForums, said in an update on March 21, 2023, that the hacking forum has been officially taken down but emphasized that "it's not the end." "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 noted in a message posted on the BreachForums Telegram channel. The  shutdown  is suspected to have been prompted by suspicions that law enforcement may have obtained access to the site's configurations, source code, and information about the forum's users. The development follows the  arrest of its administrator  Conor Brian Fitzpatrick (aka "pompompurin"), who has been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Over the past few months, BreachForums filled the void left by RaidForums last year, becoming a lucrative destination to purchase and sell stolen databases from variou

U.S. law enforcement authorities have arrested a 21-year-old New York man in connection with running the infamous BreachForums hacking forum under the online alias " Pompompurin ." The development, first reported by  Bloomberg Law , comes after News 12 Westchester, earlier this week, said that federal investigators "spent hours inside and outside of a home in Peekskill." "At one point, investigators were seen removing several bags of evidence from the house," the New York-based local news service  added . According  to an  affidavit  filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the suspect identified himself as Conor Brian Fitzpatrick and admitted to being the owner of the BreachForums website. "When I arrested the defendant on March 15, 2023, he stated to me in substance and in part that: a) his name was Conor Brian Fitzpatrick; b) he used the alias 'pompompurin,' and c) he was the owner and administrator of 'BreachForums,&#