In July, a hacking group by the name of The Impact Team threatened Avid Life Media that they would release personal information about the Ashley Madison user database if the site was not immediately shut down. Avid Life Media, the company that owns Ashley Madison and Established Men, refused to comply and between August 18th and August 20th, 25 gigabytes of data was released to the public. That information included names, email and physical addresses, credit card transactions and search history.
What is Ashley Madison?
Ashley Madison is a dating website geared towards people looking to have extramarital affairs. It states on their website that “Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating …. Ashley Madison is the most recognized and reputable married dating company… Ashley Madison is the most successful website for finding an affair and cheating partners. … With our affair guarantee package, we guarantee you will find the perfect affair partner.” The website was launched in 2001, and in 2014 it was ranked No. 18 among Adult sites. It has over 39 million members in 53 countries. In reality, 90-95% of the users are male. Most of the female profiles on the site are fake, and of the 5.5 million female accounts, less than 1% were active for more than one day. Male users have to pay to hold conversations with female users multiple times.
What Was the Hack?
The Impact Team posted personal information about members of the Ashley Madison site, from names, email addresses, credit card transactions (not full credit card numbers, however), security questions, IP addresses, phone numbers, ethnicities, genders, passwords, dates of birth and more. The hack included those who opted in Ashley Madison’s $19 “data delete.” Users could pay $19 to have all of their data permanently deleted from the Ashley Madison website, but apparently Ashley Madison didn’t delete everything. Avid Life Media has placed a bounty of $377,000 for any information leading to the identification and arrest of those responsible or the hack.
What Should Those on “The List” Do?
First off, they should tell their spouse. Besides moral and ethical reasons, financial information could have been compromised in the leak. Because security questions and passwords were part of the leak, other personal accounts such as email accounts, banking accounts and social media accounts are at risk for hacking. Change passwords and security questions, cancel credit cards and set social media accounts to private to protect family and loved ones. Also, some work forces have a morality clause that could affect employment or volunteer endeavors. Scammers may also use information from the leak as blackmail to lure someone into paying them money, so be aware that many claims may come in, and it may be a good idea for those on the list to change their email address to avoid blackmail.
[/column]