AshleyMadison hacked
If you’re a man or woman intent on cheating on your spouse, you might have signed up for account at AshleyMadison.com, a dating website designed for people looking to have an affair. As with other dating sites that charge a fee for access, your public profile doesn’t reveal precisely who you are, but the credit card and other personal information you must enter on the back end tells all.
What could possibly go wrong?
How about this: Hackers have gained access to AshleyMadison’s database and are threatening to release its members’ personal information unless the site, according to Brian Krebs at KrebsOnSecurity . AshleyMadison boasts more than 37 million users, and is owned by Avid Life Media, which has two other, similar sites – Cougar Life and Established Men. Combined, ALM’s database of users contains personal details in about 40 million accounts.
Krebs reports that the hackers, from a group calling itself The Impact Team, have already released some users’ personal info, and threaten to release it all unless AshleyMadison and Established Men shut down. Here’s the group’s rationale:
In a long manifesto posted alongside the stolen ALM data, The Impact Team said it decided to publish the information in response to alleged lies ALM told its customers about a service that allows members to completely erase their profile information for a $19 fee.
According to the hackers, although the “full delete” feature that Ashley Madison advertises promises “removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site,” users’ purchase details — including real name and address — aren’t actually scrubbed.
“Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie,” the hacking group wrote. “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”
As ALM’s chief executive points out to Krebs, the hack is “a criminal act”. But the hackers are positioning themselves on the side of righteousness, and indeed it’s hard to feel sorry for folks who set out to cheat on their significant others.
Exclusive Car Review at www.automoview.com“Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” the hackers continued. “Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver. We’ve got the complete set of profiles in our DB dumps, and we’ll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online. And with over 37 million members, mostly from the US and Canada, a significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people.”
