Forum hosting data leaks, including from Malaysia, shut down after admin arrested

The alleged founder of the forum is currently awaiting trial in New York after the FBI arrested him on March 15.— 123rf.com

Following the arrest of its alleged administrator last week, the infamous hacker website BreachForums has permanently shut down.

The forum was used to host and sell data allegedly stolen from various companies and governments, with the database of 22.5 million Malaysians born between 1940 and 2004 from an alleged leak put up for sale last year first surfacing here.

BreachForums launched in March 2022, after the FBI and its international partners seized RaidForums in February of that year.

BreachForums' founder and administrator went by the handle "Pompompurin", and is alleged to be 21-year-old Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, who was arrested by the FBI on March 15 and is currently awaiting trial in New York.

He was charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud.

According to a report from TechCrunch, the website's new administrator, Baphomet, announced its shutdown via its Telegram channel, claiming that the authorities had access to the website's back-end via Pompompurin's seized machine.

Baphomet said that this meant that things like configurations, source code, user information, and others were likely in the hands of federal agents.

This led to Baphomet deciding to let the current forum "die", but he is not done yet, as he claims he is in talks with rival forum admins and service operators, whom he hopes to work with to create another site.

In 2022, the then-Communications and Multimedia Ministry instructed Internet service providers to block the website hosting the allegedly leaked database of 22.5 million Malaysians.