The FBI and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG) conducted an outage operation that caused BreachForums to go offline.
According to the Justice Department, Fitzpatrick is the founder of BreachForums, which officials describe as one of the largest hacker forms in the world. Prosecutors think the offline BreachForums has 340,000 members.
According to Fitzpatrick, BeachForums was created in March 2022 to fill the void left by RaidForums, which was closed by an international law enforcement.
This platform served as a marketplace for trading hacked or stolen data, including bank account information, Social Security numbers, hacking tools, and databases containing personally identifiable information (PII).
Fitzpatrick’s alleged victims include millions of US citizens and hundreds of US and foreign companies, organizations and government agencies. Some of the stolen datasets included sensitive information from customers in telecommunications, social media, investment, healthcare and internet service providers. For example, on January 4, a BreachForums user published the names and contact details of nearly 200 million users of a major US-based social networking site. Also, on December 18, 2022, another BreachForums user shared details of the approximately 87,760 members of InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and private sector companies focused on protecting critical infrastructure.
Conor Brian Fitzpatrick is accused of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. If found guilty, he faces up to five years in prison.
“Anyone operating in dark web markets should take note: Working with our law enforcement partners, we will eliminate illegal forums and bring executives to justice in US courtrooms,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco.
Writer: Ebubekir GÜLEN
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