-Shweta Sharma
A US courtroom indicted a person accused of being IntelBroker, a key administrator of stolen information market BreachForums, on Wednesday, simply days after 4 others accused of operating the location alongside him had been arrested in France
British nationwide Kai West, 25, was arrested in France in February, and US authorities are looking for to extradite him to the US to face the costs on which he was indicted within the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York. These embody conspiracy to commit laptop intrusions, wire fraud offenses and unauthorized entry to protected computer systems.
Earlier within the week, the French Cybercrime Brigade arrested 4 folks believed to be ShinyHunters, Hole, Noct, and Depressed, additionally concerned in BreachForums, based on French media reviews.
Collectively, the 5 are believed to have taken over the location following the June 2023 arrest of its founder Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, aka Pompompurin. The warrant issued for West’s arrest in February claimed that he and his co-conspirators had cumulatively prompted the victims of laptop intrusions and thefts of knowledge losses of a minimum of $25 million.
The arrests mark a significant blow to the newest iteration of BreachForums, a market lengthy linked to high-profile data breaches and id theft campaigns.
Stephen Kowski, Area CTO at electronic mail security supplier SlashNext, mentioned, “These arrests characterize a big win for worldwide regulation enforcement and show that cybercriminals can’t disguise behind discussion board anonymity perpetually.”
Prosecutors allege West stole and bought information from entities spanning authorities businesses, telecoms suppliers, tech giants together with AMD, HPE, and Nokia, and healthcare suppliers.
Assumed energetic on BreachForums since shortly after pompompurin’s arrest, IntelBroker claimed duty for a sequence of excessive profile hacks between January 2023 and December 2024, together with Europol, DC Well being Hyperlink, Cisco and Normal Electrical, working primarily via the discussion board for buying and selling stolen well being data, inner company paperwork, and consumer information.
On BreachForums, IntelBroker was briefly a member of a racist cybercrime group CyberNiggers and have become a outstanding member there earlier than taking up the management of BreachForums 2.0. Having recognized himself as a Serbian dwelling in Russia in a earlier interview, IntelBroker has dismissed allegations of ties to the Iranian state as “outrageous”.
West was reportedly arrested by French authorities in February 2025, days after IntelBroker posted his resignation as BreachForums admin and proprietor citing ‘lack of time’ as the rationale for doing so. He stays in custody there whereas US authorities search his extradition.
If convicted within the US, he might withstand 25 years in jail on a number of of the costs filed towards him.
4 alleged co-conspirators nabbed in France
Following an investigation by the Cybercrime Brigade of the Paris Police Prefecture, French police arrested 4 folks believed to be BreachForums operators ShinyHunters, Hole, Noct, and Depressed in coordinated raids within the Paris area, Normandy and on the French island of Reunion earlier this week, based on a report by French newspaper Le Parisien. All 4 are reportedly French and of their twenties, the newspaper reported.
The 4 are believed to have helped handle and reasonable the revived BreachForums after its 2023 takedown. Whereas ShinyHunters and Hole held admin and moderator roles, respectively, the involvement of Noct and Depressed stays much less outlined.
The Paris Police Prefecture didn’t reply to a request for remark.
BreachForums, a successor to the shuttered RaidForums, has lengthy operated as a go-to-marketplace for stolen information–facilitating leaks tied to breaches of main French entities like Boulanger, SFR, France Travail, and the French Soccer Federation. Regardless of a number of takedowns and arrests of key admins, the discussion board repeatedly resurfaced beneath new management persevering with to gas cybercrime throughout borders.
And that will not be the top of it, warned Agnidipta Sarkar, chief evangelist at ColorTokens, developer of a Zero Belief microsegmentation platform.
“It stays unknown whether or not there are remnants of their group that might revive themselves to be smarter and extra egregious, primarily as a result of the discussion board’s reemergence after earlier takedowns in 2023 and 2024 demonstrates its resilience,” Sarkar mentioned.
Whether or not it’s BreachForums that returns, or one other such website, mentioned SlashNext’s Kowski, “Organizations must assume their information will finally floor on these platforms and give attention to real-time safety that may detect and block assaults even when utilizing authentic however compromised credentials or info.”
