Notorious online data leak market BreachForums taken down by whitehat heroes

Date:
Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Description:
BreachForums is no more - but for how long?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get the TechRadar Newsletter Sign up for
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now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter BreachForums taken offline after CCITIC abuse reports Admin announces departure, seeking new leadership Forum trust eroded after 324,000-user database leak in January 2026 BreachForums, one of the most popular underground forums for sharing malware , stolen data, and more - was taken down. Now, the admin seems to be giving up and looking for someone to pass
the torch to.

Over the weekend, the Cyber Counter-Intelligence Threat Investigation Consortium (CCITIC) posted on LinkedIn, saying that both the clearnet and Tor versions of BreachForums were displaying a 502 - Bad Gateway error. CCITIC is a non-profit which investigates cybersecurity threats and assists law enforcement in takedown efforts, and the organization said it managed to identify the upstream servers behind BreachForums, all hosted on DigitalOcean (ASN 14061) in the Frankfurt am Main datacenter. After filing abuse reports all three servers were taken offline. Article continues below You may like Hacking hub BreachForums hit by data breach - 324,000 accounts exposed Major data leak forum LeakBase seized by FBI, Europol, and shut down FBI seizes
RAMP cybercrime forum used by ransomware gangs Admin steps down This is
hardly BreachForums first rodeo. It was seized twice by law enforcement -
once in June 2023, and then again in May 2024. Every time it managed to
bounce back, and it is likely to happen again. However, it might be under new management.

Following the shutdown and the defacement, the forums admin posted a message on the homepage, saying they were quitting and looking for someone else to take over.

It is time for me to say goodbye though not entirely, the post reads. At
this moment, however, I must take a step back. Despite this, I will continue to support BreachForums in any way I can whenever possible. For this reason, we are now seeking a responsible individual or group willing to take over the leadership and ongoing support of the forum.

CCITIC suggests the forum might never recover, though, as things have
changed. In January 2026, its own database of ~324,000 users was leaked, the organization said. The ecosystem is fracturing, and trust among threat actors is collapsing. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners
or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms &
Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You don't need to be the FBI to take action. Rigorous OSINT work, backend server identification, a well-documented abuse report sent to the right hosting provider and a cybercriminal forum goes down.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/notorious-online-data-leak-market-breac hforums-taken-down-by-whitehat-heroes


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