Something seems to be up — or down, to be more accurate.
BreachForums clearnet and onion sites are down, with the clearnet site returning a “502- Bad Gateway” response.
A WhoIs lookup for BreachForums.st shows the name servers as ddos-guard.net. That is the domain used by ShinyHunters for the forum, so the government does not appear to have seized the forum again (unless a name server change hasn’t propagated yet). Was the forum taken down by another entity or ShinyHunters themselves? We do not yet know.
Telegram accounts for ShinyHunters and Breach Forums that were not seized by the FBI on May 15 have now disappeared overnight and one forum moderator is trying to post updates from another channel. On June 9, they posted a PGP-signed message saying:
Hello
It seems telegram banned ShinyHunters account. which means this channel can be deleted soon by telegram
As a temp solution i will do the next announcements in my channel https://t.me/OfficialAegis
That account is still online as of this morning.
To fill the void, speculation runs wild
DataBreaches does not know:
- by whom or how BreachForums was taken down.
- who or what may have served Telegram with legal process, if any, to take down accounts or channels.
- if Baphomet was really arrested on or about May 15, and
- if the individual calling themself ShinyHunters (@shinycorp) has been arrested now.
DataBreaches is aware that Vinny Troia posted:
Breachforums down again! ShinyHunters sent someone a private TG message about 8 hours ago stating the forum os too much trouble and is going to retire. Then he destroyed all telegram channels and the forum; I.e., Congrats to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for nabbing Shiny.
Did Shiny really send any such message, and if so, was it true? And why does Troia congratulate the FBI for “nabbing Shiny?” Is there any evidence that Shiny has been arrested anywhere or did Shiny just disappear voluntarily? Troia makes a lot of unconfirmed claims that should not be relied upon without proof.
DataBreaches declines to speculate about developments and has contacted the U.S. Department of Justice to see if they will provide any information. If they do, or when actual information becomes available, this post will be updated.