Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, the 22-year-old behind the infamous BreachForums hacking discussion board, was resentenced right this moment to a few years in jail after a federal appeals court docket overturned his prior sentence of time served and 20 years of supervised launch.
Fitzpatrick, of New York, operated beneath the alias “Pompompurin” and created the BreachForums hacking discussion board in 2022 after the FBI took down RaidForums.
Fitzpatrick was arrested on March 15, 2023, and charged with conspiracy to solicit people to promote unauthorized entry gadgets. On the time of his arrest, he admitted to FBI brokers that he was Pompompurin and the administrator of BreachForums.
In July 2023, Fitzpatrick pleaded responsible to Conspiracy to Commit Entry Machine Fraud, Solicitation for the Function of Providing Entry, and Possession of Baby Pornography.
The Division of Justice says Fitzpatrick violated his pretrial launch situations through the use of the web on unmonitored gadgets.
“After he entered his responsible pleas, the defendant used VPN companies to hide his use of the Web and repeatedly utilized an unauthorized and unmonitored digital machine (or gadgets) to keep away from detection by pretrial companies,” reads court docket paperwork relating to the resentencing.
“Even now, the defendant has not supplied pretrial companies or the federal government with this unmonitored machine (or gadgets).”
Regardless of prosecutors looking for greater than 15 years in jail, Fitzpatrick was sentenced in January 2024, to time served, which included 17 days in jail, and 20 years of supervised launch.
Underneath that sentence, he was positioned on residence confinement with GPS monitoring for 2 years, barred from web entry throughout his first yr of launch, required to put in monitoring software program on his gadgets, and required to bear psychological well being remedy.
After an enchantment by the Division of Justice, the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the sentence in January 2025, discovering it inadequate, and remanded the case for resentencing.
At the moment, Fitzpatrick was given a three-year jail time period on three counts: conspiracy to commit entry machine fraud, solicitation for the aim of providing entry gadgets, and possession of CSAM.
BreachForums
BreachForums was a hacking discussion board used to commerce, promote, and leak stolen information, in addition to promote entry to company networks and different unlawful cybercrime companies. BreachForums quickly grew into one of many largest English-language hacking boards, boasting greater than 330,000 members.
The positioning grew to become infamous for the promoting and buying and selling of stolen information from telecom suppliers, social networks, healthcare corporations, funding corporations, and authorities businesses.
Nonetheless, it confronted rising strain by the US authorities after a risk actor breached D.C. Well being Hyperlink, a healthcare supplier for U.S. Home members, their workers, and their households, and commenced utilizing the discussion board to promote and leak stolen information.
It was quickly after this breach, that the FBI seized BreachForums and arrested Fitzpatrick.
46% of environments had passwords cracked, practically doubling from 25% final yr.
Get the Picus Blue Report 2025 now for a complete have a look at extra findings on prevention, detection, and information exfiltration tendencies.
