Security News > 2023 > July > Owner of BreachForums Pleads Guilty to Cybercrime and Child Pornography Charges

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, the owner of the now-defunct BreachForums website, has pleaded guilty to charges related to his operation of the cybercrime forum as well as having child pornography images.

The development, first reported by DataBreaches.net last week, comes nearly four months after Fitzpatrick was formally charged in the U.S. with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and possession of child pornography.

BreachForums, launched in March 2022, operated as an illegal marketplace that allowed its members to trade hacked or stolen databases, enabling other criminal actors to gain unauthorized access to target systems.

"The purpose of BreachForums, and Fitzpatrick's intent in operating the forum, was to commit and aid and abet the trafficking of stolen or hacked databases containing, among other things, access devices, and the posting of solicitations to offer databases containing access devices," according to court documents.

Liles, from Hertfordshire, is said to have altered the original ransom email and changed the payment address provided by the original attacker in an attempt to divert any ransom payments to himself.

"Using the information he learned from this, Liles commenced a secondary attack on the company. He accessed senior board members' emails over 300 times and altered the attackers original email address to an almost identical one."

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2023/07/owner-of-breachforums-pleads-guilty-to.html