There have been a few developments likely related to the seizure of BreachForums. As a preview, recall that Kantonspolizei Zürich was one of the cooperating entities in the takedown and that the seizure notice had two avatars behind bars. One avatar was Baphomet, the administrator of the forum. The other was a default avatar that has been used by a number of people but is not the avatar of the forum owner known as ShinyHunters (@ShinyCorp).
Law enforcement has yet to issue any press release or answer any questions about the takedown on May 15, but the following day, ShinyHunters claimed that they had recovered the domain. Baphomet’s Telegram channel remains under FBI control, and Baphomet has not been heard from.
New Developments
CloudFlare cancels BreachForum’s Account
ShinyHunters was notified by CloudFlare (CF) that they had received a court order ordering CF to cancel Breach Forum’s account. A text copy of the communication was shared with DataBreaches by ShinyHunters:
To Whom It May Concern:
We received a court order requiring the termination of your Cloudflare account. We have determined that this is a valid order, and we are required to comply. In accordance with our Privacy Policy, we are informing you of the reason for terminating your account.
CF did not tell ShinyHunters what court had ordered that. ShinyHunters has asked them to provide a copy of the order if there was no gag order with it or to at least inform them what court ordered it so it could be appealed. They have not received a reply from CF as of publication.
Switzerland Services seized
On May 15, the same day as the site seizure, Switzerland Services sent customers a notice. A text copy was provided to DataBreaches by ShinyHunters:
SWITZERLAND SERVICES 15th May 2024:
Dear customers, we are very sorry to communicate that all our network equipment and servers in Switzerland were confiscated yesterday by Swiss police due to a local prosecutor order and therefore all services in Switzerland are currently unavailable and all data can de considered as lost and compromised. This is a very unfortunate event which we could not prevent or provide any solution in the short term as this is out of our control. Services in the Netherlands continue to work normally and are not affected, please remember that we do not tolerate anything illegal. Our most sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. We will keep you updated, please refrain form opening a ticket about this cause we cannot help in this regard anymore. Sorry and thank you for your understanding and trust.
ShinyHunters had previously told DataBreaches that BreachForums has used servers and services located in Switzerland.
ShinyHunters has also claimed to be in Switzerland. DataBreaches does not know if that is true or not.
This continues to be a developing situation.