Type of site | Internet forum |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Dissolved | April 12, 2022 |
Successor(s) | BreachForums |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Founder(s) | Diogo Santos Coelho, also known by his screen name "Omnipotent" |
URL | raidforums |
Advertising | Yes |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Optional |
Users | 530,000 at time of shutdown |
Launched | 2015 |
Current status | Seized by the United States FBI |
RaidForums was an English-language black hat hacking internet forum active from 2015 until 2019. The website facilitated the discussion of a variety of hacking topics and was a notable distributor of various data breaches, hacking tools, and pornography until its seizure in 2022. [1] The website was monetized via advertisements and through a tiered membership program where members with higher tiers would receive elevated access to the forum and its contents. [2] [3]
RaidForums began in 2015 as a platform for Twitch raiders. [4]
The domain and its contents were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on April 12, 2022 after a month of downtime, in collaboration with the United States Secret Service, the United States Department of Justice, and a variety of other national and international law enforcement agencies. [1]
The website was allegedly founded by a 21-year old Portuguese national, Diogo Santos Coelho under the screen name "Omnipotent", who was arrested on January 31, 2022 in the United Kingdom. [5] His arrest occurred pending several years of investigation after several of his devices were searched under warrant at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in June 2018, suggesting he was the owner and primary administrator "Omnipotent". According to hackread.com, an administrator under screen name "Jaw" & "souls" announced the seizure officially on the forum's public Telegram channel, and redirected subscribers of the channel to RaidForums' backup domain rf.to, [2] which however went offline (and has remained offline for months) after this statement, only becoming reachable again after Diogo Santos Coelho's release on bail [6] [7] in August 2022.
At the time of its closure in 2022, the forum had over 530,000 registered users and was one of the most prolific and easily accessible clearnet illicit hacking forums. [2]
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AlphaBay was a darknet market operating at different times between September 2014 and February 2023. At times, it was both an onion service on the Tor network and an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation Bayonet, it was relaunched in August 2021 by the self-described co-founder and security administrator DeSnake. The alleged original founder, Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen born on 19 October 1991, was found dead in his cell in Thailand several days after his arrest, with police suspecting suicide.
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