Justice Department details arrest of alleged hacker forum founder

The U.S. Department of Justice has detailed the arrest of the alleged founder and operator of BreachForums, an alleged marketplace for cybercriminals to buy, sell and trade hacked or stolen data.

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, 20, of Peekskill, New York, made an initial appearance in the Eastern District of Virginia regarding a major hacking forum and marketplace claiming to allegedly have over 340,000 members as of last week.

According to the Justice Department, in parallel with Fitzpatrick’s arrest on March 15, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) have conducted a disruption operation that caused BreachForums to go offline.

Via court documents, the Justice Department alleges Fitzpatrick operated BreachForums as a marketplace for cybercriminals to buy, sell and trade hacked or stolen data and other contraband since March 2022, adding among the stolen items commonly sold on the platform were bank account information, social security numbers, other personally identifying information (PII), means of identification, hacking tools, breached databases, services for gaining unauthorized access to victim systems, and account login information for compromised online accounts with service providers and merchants.

Fitzpatrick is charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, noting if convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Fitzpatrick’s arrest and the disruption of BreachForums come nearly a year after the Department of Justice announced the seizure of a predecessor hacking marketplace, Raidforums, and unsealed criminal charges against RaidForums’ founder and chief administrator, according to the Justice Department.

“We continue our work to dismantle key players in the cybercrime ecosystem,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said. “Like its predecessor RaidForums, which we took down almost a year ago, BreachForums bridged the gap between hackers hawking pilfered data and buyers eager to exploit it.”