Salacious details of cheaters revealed
TORONTO: Hackers dumped online personal details of more than a million users of infidelity website AshleyMadison.com, technical websites reported on Tuesday, the latest high-profile cyber attack that threatens to wreak strife in relationships across the globe.
After threatening to release salacious details on as many as 37 million customers of the website, which uses the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair”, hackers claimed to publish a huge cache of e-mail addresses and credit card data stolen last month.
The authenticity of the posting couldn’t be immediately confirmed. Avid Life Media, which owns Ashley Madison and Established Men, widely described as a “sugar daddy site”, didn’t verify that the data was real, but said it was aware of the claim.
The hackers used the dark web, which is only accessible using a specialised browser.
Within hours, thousands of e-mail addresses from North America and Europe, including many linked to corporations and universities, sprouted up on other sites as people de- crypted the database.
It is possible to create an Ashley Madison account using someone else’s name and e-mail.
The hackers had appointed themselves as “the moral judge, juror and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society”, the company said in a statement.
“These are illegitimate acts that have real consequences for innocent citizens who are simply going about their daily lives,” it said.
The FBI is investigating the theft alongside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and local police, it said.
The hackers, who call themselves The Impact Team, leaked snippets of the compromised data last month and threatened to publish names, nude photos and sexual fantasies of customers unless Ashley Madison and another site owned by Avid Life were taken down.
“Avid Life Media has failed to take down the sites,” tech website Wired quoted The Impact Team as saying. “We have explained the fraud, deceit and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data,” the hackers said, according to Wired. – Reuters
Hackers moral judge, juror and executioner