Three information dumps onto the dark internet leaked details of about 39 million person accounts, as well as a trove of inside documents and emails from its mother or father firm, Avid Life Media (ALM). According to the hackers, although the full delete” characteristic that Ashley Madison advertises guarantees removing of site utilization historical past and personally identifiable information from the location,” customers’ purchase details — including real name and handle — aren’t really scrubbed. Although I didn’t go home with Nice Dick, I left the hint that I might, and three months later, he still hits me up on Kik (the anonymous messaging app users quickly graduate to because Ashley Madison’s messaging sucks worse than Twitter).
In the weeks following the breach, Avid Life Media’s customer service stopped responding with something of substance to 1000’s of horrified requests, leaving its users fully on their own. On the title of it’s main page, advertises itself as ‘The World’s Best Free Adult Dating’ website and it aims to back those words up with its’ features, navigability, and its’ growing database of users from around the world. In the past two weeks, researchers have detected several hundred” emails that threaten to air those intimate details to the world unless the former subscribers pay a hefty fee.
Small samples of client data from three of ALM’s sites have already been leaked online, along with maps of internal company servers, employee account and salary information, and company bank account data. To help locate new troves of data claiming to be the files stolen from AshleyMadison, the company’s forensics team has been using a tool that Netflix released last year called Scumblr , which scours high-profile sites for specific terms and data. Ashley Madison brought her together with other men and women in similar circumstances (it helped her find support) and the solace she found via the site helped her to stay in her marriage—for this Ashley Madison should be praised, not condemned.
The attackers demand two Web sites — Ashley Madison and Established Men — be shut or more compromising and financial data will be released. Late last night , the 37 million users of the adultery-themed dating site Ashley Madison got some very bad news. August 24, 2015: Two Canadian law firms announce a joint $578 million class action lawsuit against Ashley Madison on behalf of all Canadians, citing Ashley Madison’s 39 million users whose information has been exposed as well as the many users who paid Ashley Madison’s delete fee but did not have their information removed.
ALM’s knowledge that a subset of its users submit false email addresses. I deleted my Ashley Madison app. That’s surprising for a few reasons, not the least of which being that hackers the other week exposed private information on the site’s existing 37 million users, and you’d expect no one to trust the site after that to properly facilitate discreet affairs. One of the cool things is that they also have a blog that has very informative articles and dating advice about how to be successful with online dating especially for people looking for quick encounters and hookups.
Vade Secure has found data stolen in the 2015 Ashley Madison breach resurfacing in highly specific blackmail attempts against former customers of the adultery facilitation service. In the weeks following the breach, Avid Life Media’s customer service stopped responding with anything of substance to thousands of horrified requests, leaving its users completely on their own. I created an account to report this story, and, after sending messages to several users saying that I was a reporter looking for sources, my account was promptly deleted.
There have already been multiple class action lawsuits filed against Ashley Madison and its parent company, Avid Life Media, but these findings could send the figures skyrocketing. For example, messages and emails cost five credits. Ashley Madison recently surveyed more than 1,400 members and asked what time of year they wanted to have affairs. In fact I would applaud a method by which you verify the identity and make the person’s full data from Ashley Madison available to them; that would be a genuinely valuable service if done in a responsible fashion.