To Whom It May Concern: I’m in the Raidforums/Breached user database

Several news media are reporting that a database with information on half a million users of Raidforums, a well-known hacking forum seized by law enforcement in April 2022, has been leaked online, and that another similar site, Breached/Breachforums, was shut down by LE in March 2023 after its founder “Pompompurin” was arrested by the FBI.

The Raidforums leak is reported to include “usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, registration dates, and a variety of other information related to the forum software”.

A username and email address linked to me is almost certainly in the Raidforums database and in the Breached userlist. As a journalist, I registered with Raidforums and Breached to monitor and report on newsworthy data breaches and other security incidents, as evidenced in this blog and in my podcasts for Swiss National Radio Rsi.ch. I intentionally made no attempt to conceal my identity, using one of my primary and well-known e-mail addresses to register. I am announcing this preemptively in the hope that it will save law enforcement some time, but if you’re with LE and you still want to know more about my presence on these forums, you know how to contact me.

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Riassunto in italiano: è stato annunciato che le liste utenti di due noti forum di hacking, Raidforums e Breached/Breachforums, sono state acquisite dalle forze dell’ordine e che la lista di Raidforums è stata anche pubblicata online da ignoti. Come giornalista, mi ero iscritto a entrambi per monitorare e riferire sulle fughe di dati di interesse pubblico, e a questo scopo ho scelto di non nascondere la mia identità, usando uno dei miei indirizzi di mail più noti. Segnalo queste informazioni a titolo preventivo sperando che questo eviti equivoci e perdite di tempo.