Ashley Madison hack threatens to expose millions of users

[Bosonic]

Last edited Mon Jul 20, 2015, 06:17 AM - Edit history (2)

Source: Engadget

Ashley Madison, the dating website that purports to connect people looking for an affair, has been the victim of a hack that has exposed the personal data of its 37 million users. Krebs on Security is reporting that the perpetrators are a hacker or hackers going by the name of Impact Team. So far, only a small selection of information has been uploaded, but the group is threatening to post the entire haul unless Ashley Madison and sister site Established Men are shut down for good. CEO Noel Biderman has confirmed that the attack is legitimate and has pledged to take down compromising files as they're found online. Not that it's likely to be much comfort to the people waking up to find their personal details splashed across the internet.

It's believed that the hack was carried out because of a much-derided feature that the company offers called Full Delete. Should a user wish to leave the site, they can pay a $19 fee to have all of their personal data scrubbed from the Madison servers. There's only one catch: according to Impact Team, it's all a lie, and despite making $1.7 million from the service in 2014, the data remains safely preserved.

For his part, Biderman believes that the attack was an inside job and that he is close to confirming the identity of the culprit. Right now, it's thought that the person wasn't an employee, but someone who had "touched" the company's "technical services." That makes sense, since the Impact Team statement offers an apology to Mark Steele, the website's director of security.

At the time of publication, Ashley Madison remains online, but we imagine that we'll be spending the rest of the day updating this piece as new developments occur. Perhaps the company should change its tagline from "life is short, have an affair" to "it's all fun and games until everybody finds out."

Read more: http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/20/ashley-madison-hack/

[Helen Borg]

1. This will be interesting....

[bemildred]

2. Yeah, much better than TV.

Predictable too, this is the internet, and "information wants to be free". You put it on the internet, it's out there forever.

Facebook for philanderers doesn't seem like a good idea anyway, you know they are watching you and collecting your data and selling it.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. .

Edgar Hoover never had it so good.

[OKNancy]

3. Looks like it it more than threaten

Online cheaters exposed after hackers access AshleyMadison hookup site

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/20/online-cheaters-exposed-after-hackers-access-ashleymadison-hookup-site/

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. If that's true, they're probably toast.

If you had people pay you to delete their compromising data, then didn't delete it, that's lawsuit city. The mere fact that you're charging them a fee to delete your data is already extortionate.

[customerserviceguy]

8. And they know

that few will sue. Nobody who uses a site like that wants anyone else to know about it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

11. They will once that data is put out there anyway. nt

[Calista241]

34. I bet a lot of them will sue.

I bet there are a significant number of members out there that actually want a divorce. Throw in the opportunity to make a little money off of it. Bingo!

[corkhead]

5. wow. 37 million people will be coughing up their Cheerios this morning

[Helen Borg]

16. Any prominent politicians there?

[DeeDeeNY]

6. This is shocking and a little scary

that Ashley Madison has 37 million users.

[OnlinePoker]

24. I imagine that's a global number, not just in the U.S.

Still, a lot of people aren't happy in their relationships and there will always be a market for something like this.

[Beauregard]

31. It also means there are a lot of women willing to trade sex for money.

Millions and millions.

[Xithras]

39. Keep in mind that up to 6% of marriages are "open".

Doing the math, that's around 6 million people (3 million married couples) in the United States alone. And AM is a global site. Even if you pick the lowest global estimate for open marriages, it's been estimated that there are more than 100 million adults in the world who are in open relationships, and the number may be as high as three quarters of a billion globally if you use the higher estimates of open relationship frequency.

I'm sure that many of the AM site users are, in fact, cheating...but I do know for a fact that many people in consensual open marriages also used the site to find partners.

[littlewolf]

7. think of the lawyers divorce and other wise …. :D

[bananas]

9. Time to legalize polyamory. nt

[Helen Borg]

17. I did not know it was illegal!

Also, polyamory has nothing to do with cheating, no?

[bananas]

32. It's a euphemism for polygamy, because there's so much prejudice against it. nt

[bananas]

10. That sound you hear is 37 million heads exploding.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/online-cheating-site-ashleymadison-hacked/

[aceofblades]

12. or the sound of millions of doors being slammed in faces...

and belongings tossed out on the street lol

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. Interesting to see that they're also all those other dating sites, but it makes sense.

Once you've got the code, there's very little involved with swapping out website names and graphics and snippets of text to recustomize a given dating website into any other dating website. I'm almost surprised they're not also 'FarmersOnly.com' and every other dating site out there.

[7962]

14. Well, shit. So they'll release ALL my rejections to the public?

[Lochloosa]

20. That will be my defense. "See how lucky I am to have you honey?"

No one else will have me.....

[7962]

50. Thats just crazy enough to work...........!

[dembotoz]

15. 37 million...damn. Saw some articles on the site and always wondered how many folks would sign up

[pipoman]

19. I wonder what the gender split is and how many are pros

[Vinca]

18. It's going to be a banner day for florists. LOL.

[Happyhippychick]

21. How will someone know if their spouse was cheating?

There can't be a list with 37 million names, can there?

[Igel]

27. Why not?

It would be a pain to print out and look through, though.

Or you can scroll ... and scroll ... and scroll ...

And hope to recognize the pseudonym your S.O. uses.

[Happyhippychick]

30. His would be "luckiest guy on earth who snagged a great chick"!

I would find him instantly!

[Nye Bevan]

38. A text file released on Bit Torrent? (nt)

[Xithras]

40. Well, it says that the billing addresses have also been hacked.

Depending on the format of the data, it would take me less than an hour to hack out a rough app that merged the info with the Google maps API to generate a map of the cheaters in your area. I wouldn't personally put something like that together, but I'm sure we'll see something along those lines pop up fairly quickly.

[PersonNumber503602]

52. Depending on how much data they grabbed

I could see them creating some sites that provide a nice interface in which someone just types in a name and it pulls up a list of all the hits. Then from there they click on each user to see all the data they have on that user. If they have messages and all that good stuff, I'd imagine it would be very popular.

[onehandle]

23. My nom de gare there, 'Seymore Hiney' is untraceable back to me. nt

[Coventina]

46. LOL!

[PoliticAverse]

26. So what was (insert your favorite politician here)'s pseudonym? n/t

[Igel]

28. 37 million "users."

But probably far, far fewer different people.

[snooper2]

42. yep, just like people here say- Oh we have 224,690 DU'ers!

Well, not really LOL-

probably at max 5-6k active users...rest are trolls, one time accounts to say fuck you and people changing screen names

[mainer]

29. What do the hackers want? Just to shut it down?

I'm not clear what their goal is, if not monetary.

[whatthehey]

33. Of those 37 million one wonders how many are actually women....

[jtuck004]

35. 37 million. lol. That's all? there are scores of sites, and that's just the folks who

use one. If there was a real database it would number 5 or 6 times that. It's so very much more common than all the self-righteous want to think, in a nation of hypocrites. Would be interesting one day for people getting together for sex to not be seen as a object of scorn.

Than again, everyone would have to quit being a closet misogynist and pretend they really do think women can think for themselves to do so, and that they have more to offer than sex.

Phat chance of that.

[Skittles]

53. or maybe they just think this kind of website is pathetic?

[Kelvin Mace]

36. Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming

Ah, Karma....

[hughee99]

37. Any bets on how many politicans this will affect if it gets out? n/t

[wordpix]

41. hopefully lots of repuke hypocrites screaming about family values

and how The Gay is going to ruin the country.

[Skittles]

54. it's TEH GAY

GET WITH THE PROGRAM, WORDPIX

[agincourt]

43. Many people sign up,

and don't even use it.

[olddots]

44. I am so happy to not know what Ashley Madison is about

[Coventina]

45. 37 Million?!?!?! Holy cow that's a lot of cheating!!

Never heard of that website before today.

[Blue_Tires]

47. If it's like any other dating/hookup site

I'm estimating 30-40% of the accounts are fake anyway

[Exultant Democracy]

48. Little do they know nothing can stop Carlos Danger

Weiner, still a classic.

[chloes1]

49. Said list

coming soon to a 4chan or reddit near you.

[onecaliberal]

51. :

[raven mad]

55. Sigh..............

I think I'll have a cigarette..............