Hackers threaten to leak Ashley Madison’s 37 million clients

Hackers are threatening to publish the highly personal details of up to 36 million people who use the cheating website Ashley Madison.

The attack on Ashley Madison comes less than two months after hackers leaked user data on more than 3.5 million accounts from AdultFriendFinder.

However, it is still unclear as to how much information the culprits have managed to obtain, but a named team have come forward to claim responsibility for the attack. But the hackers claim that the company is lying about this feature, and still retains users’ real name, address and credit card details.

If ALM doesn’t comply, the hackers say that they will continue releasing “all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails”, Krebs reports.

The hack was first announced by KrebsOnSecurity blog, which cited ALM Chief Executive Noel Biderman who said that the company was “working diligently and feverishly” to take down ALM’s intellectual property. I’ve got their profile right in front of me, all their work credentials. In essence, for $19, AshleyMadison claims it completely erases a user’s information from its servers.

Ashley Madison, along with a number of other dating sites, had already been criticised for the lack of care taken over customer information at least once before. The other websites may stay online. “Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver…” “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”, the hackers reportedly stated. Biderman said that rather than a random outsider targeting his company, the investigation points to someone who had at one point “touched [ALM’s] technical services”, suggesting that a former employee or contractor may have had a hand in the leak. Back in May, Adult Friend Finder had its user database published online following a hack.

We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.

“We were recently made aware of an attempt by an unauthorized party to gain access to our systems,” AVID LIFE media Inc., which owns the site, said in a statement. “Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible”, the company added.