Hacker boss jailed after lenient sentence overturned
Picture: ACS - supplied
Article Excerpt:
The founder of global hacking website BreachForums will serve three years in prison after judges challenged an initial sentence of just 17 days.
New York man Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, known as ‘Pompompurin’ online, received the sentence for crimes related to his founding and administrative role at BreachForums – a long-running and prolific hacking site where cybercriminals exchanged techniques, shared illicit materials and leaked data from some of the world’s most significant data breaches.
Further topics discussed in this article include:
Fitzpatrick founded criminal underground as a teen
Is BreachForums finally dead?
Evan Vougdis, our Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Response contributed expert insights to this article:
In April this year, BreachForums was taken offline after what appeared to be a fatal distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
Though multiple mirrors of the website re-appeared in the weeks to follow, Information Age understands no clear-web links for the platform are operational at the time of writing.
Although continued law enforcement disruptions have diminished user trust for the criminal forum, Evan Vougdis, cyber director at Sydney-based cybersecurity firm NSB Cyber, said it was unlikely Fitzpatrick’s sentence would deter another restoration of the BreachForums brand.
“As for other forums, cybercrime ecosystems are quite resilient, with platforms like these often migrating to new domains, [dark web] sites, or entirely fresh brands following disruptions,” he said.
“The repeated revivals of BreachForums itself despite FBI seizures and international cooperation indicate that sentences like this, whilst always a net positive result, rarely halt the broader proliferation of similar sites.”
Source: Information Age - ACS - Thursday 18 September 2025
Author: By Leonard Bernardone
Reference: Hacker boss jailed after lenient sentence overturned
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