Popular website for cheating spouses hacked, personal info posted

Avid Life Media Inc., the parent company of Ashley Madison, a matchmaking website for cheating spouses, said it was hacked and that the personal information of some of its users was posted online.

While the company says it has closed the security holes and erased the hackers’ message and any personal information about users, it will do little good if the hackers have transferred the data elsewhere, said Rik Turner, an analyst at technology researcher Ovum in London.

“Our team of forensics experts and security professionals, in addition to law enforcement, are continuing to investigate this incident and we will continue to provide updates as they become available”.

The breach was first reported late Sunday by Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security, a website that focuses on cybersecurity.

The Impact Team also demanded that Avid Life Media’s other online website, Established Men, be taken down.

“We’re not denying this happened”, Biderman told Krebs, describing the hack as a criminal attack. The online “dating” site which encourages married people to have affairs has been hacked by a group calling themselves “The Impact Team” (the abbreviation is “TIT” and I can’t help thinking this was intentional in some way).

“For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to cheat don’t do it online and leave yourself open”, Turner said.

Ashley Madison gives users the option to delete their user data for the price of $19, but the hackers claim the feature is flawed and doesn’t actually successfully wipe customers’ information.

The hackers said in a statement: “Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release 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”. Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver. “Have an affair”, has been planning to raise up to $200 million through an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.

Ashley Madison isn’t the first hook-up service to be held to ransom for stolen information. “They’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion”. As of Monday morning, ALM said it had removed all posts related to the incident from its site, as well as all personally identifiable information about its users.

The hacking follows the May breach of the dating website Adult FriendFinder, which involved the theft of names, email addresses and information about the sexual orientation or habits of up to 4 million of that site’s members.

In their own statement, ALM said: “We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information”.