The French police have reportedly arrested 5 operators of the BreachForum cybercrime discussion board, a web site utilized by cybercriminals to leak and promote stolen information that uncovered the delicate data of hundreds of thousands.
Information of the arrests come from Le Parisien, which claims the legislation enforcement operation was carried out by the cybercrime unit (BL2C) of the Paris police division on Monday.
In response to reporters, the police carried out simultaneous raids within the areas of Hauts-de-Seine (Paris), Seine-Maritime (Normandy), and Réunion (abroad).
Throughout this motion, they’ve arrested 4 hackers identified on-line by the handles “ShinyHunters,” “Hole,” “Noct,” and “Depressed.”
For months, rumors circulated that one other well-known risk actor, “IntelBroker,” had additionally been arrested. Le Parisien stories that IntelBroker was additionally arrested by French authorities in February 2025.
The BreachForums hacking boards have gone by means of quite a few iterations through the years however acted as a group for cybercriminals to commerce, promote, and leak stolen information, in addition to promote entry to company networks and different unlawful cybercrime companies.
In 2023, the authentic BreachForums shut down after its operator, Conor Brian FitzPatrick (aka Pompompurin), was arrested.
Quickly after, different risk actors in the neighborhood launched BreachForums v2, which was led by risk actors often known as ShinyHunters, Baphomet, and, later, IntelBroker.
The 5 risk actors that have been arrested have been reportedly concerned within the operation of this new launch of the location.
ShinyHunters and IntelBroker have been admins/homeowners of the location, and archived posts present Hole appearing as a moderator. It’s unclear what involvement “depressed” and “noct” had within the operation of the location.
These cybercriminals are accused of getting direct involvement in information breaches in opposition to French entities like Boulanger, SFR, France Travail, and the French Soccer Federation.
The assault in opposition to France Travail (previously Pôle Emploi) was significantly notable for compromising the delicate particulars of an estimated 43 million people.
IntelBroker rose to notoriety for his involvement in extremely publicized breaches at Europol, Basic Electrical, Weee!, AMD, HPE, Nokia, and Cisco. Nevertheless, the risk actor entered the highlight after breaching DC Well being Hyperlink, the group that administers the well being care plans of U.S. Home members, their employees, and their households.
ShinyHunters is probably the most infamous amongst these arrested, because the alias has been linked to a number of high-profile information breaches and assaults, together with these in opposition to Salesforce and PowerSchool, and the SnowFlake assaults, which impacted Santander, Ticketmaster, AT&T, Advance Auto Elements, Neiman Marcus, and Cylance.
The ShinyHunters risk actors have additionally been concerned in a big quantity breaches in 2025, with the group believed to encompass a number of risk actors working below the identical title.
BreachForums v2 went offline in April 2025 after the location was allegedly breached by a MyBB zero-day vulnerability. The discussion board by no means returned on-line.
BleepingComputer has contacted the Paris police and ANSSI to touch upon the validity and accuracy of the stories, however we have now not acquired a response but.
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