Users of a website promoting sexual affairs may have had their information dumped onto the open Internet after the site was compromised by hackers and user information stolen.
There are many people out there right now who are probably sitting rather uncomfortably.
AshleyMadison.com is a somewhat controversial dating website, since its unique selling point is that it specifically caters for individuals who are already in committed relationships, even married, that are looking for affairs with “100% like-minded individuals.”
Of all the websites out there, this is certainly one where you would think that user privacy would be paramount to the people behind it. Well not as much as you’d think, because plenty of sensitive information about members of the website was stolen recently, and now it’s all been dumped online, along with some serious allegations to boot.
A month ago the Impact Team – a collective of computer hackers – claimed responsibility for the attack claiming they’d release the information if AshleyMadison refused to go offline. AshleyMadison stayed online, and only a handful of days ago the hackers released 10GB of information pertaining to the websites large user base, including names, emails and even sexual preferences. Since then many have been piecing together the information using various tools.
And today more information got leaked including – according to reports – design and development files and company emails.
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But it’s not just private member information that could land AshleyMadison in hot water. Impact Team also asserted that personal information about members that was supposed to have been permanently deleted is also included amongst the leaked information.
Members could pay the website to permanently delete their information, and if it does transpire that their information was in fact not deleted – and has now been leaked – legal troubles could await for the infidelity website.
Since the leaked information went public, plenty of people have been accused of using the website, and some have even admitted that they have. “Outed” members can take advantage of the fact that users could use fake names and emails during registration, meaning that just because your name and email appear on the database, this isn’t concrete evidence that you used the site.
Point of note, Special Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI was spotted on the list.
Despite that, this hack looks to be one of the most controversial ones of recent times, and could potentially lead to lots more trouble for AshleyMadison. With various groups still going through the first dump and now the second one, it’s unlikely we’ve reached the conclusion of this story just yet.