Could online hack reveal identities of adulterers?

MILLIONS of would-be love cheats risk being found out after a dating website for adulterers was targeted by hackers.

The Ashley Madison website has 37million members around the world – including a claimed 1.2million in the UK – with its tagline: ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’

But hackers – who dubbed themselves the Impact Team – claim they have got members’ credit card information, which can be used to identify them.

The cyber criminals have already published a small amount of the information online, and say they will continue divulging the secrets of Ashley Madison’s would-be adulterers until the service is closed.

Hackers claimed that even cheaters who have paid Ashley Madison to delete their informa-

‘The Google of cheating’

tion from its files are at risk. The website charges members £12 for what it claims is a ‘full delete’. However, the hackers said this service was a ‘complete lie’.

Avid Life Media, the firm behind Ashley Madison, admitted yesterday that there had been an ‘unprovoked and criminal intrusion’ but did not confirm how much data had been stolen.

Independent security expert Brian Krebs said that the information that has already been published appears to be genuine.

The security breach is bad news for Ashley Madison, which has been battling to gain respectability in the business community, where it is dubbed the ‘Google of cheating’. It even hoped to float on the London Stock Exchange later this year.

Avid Life Media said last night that it had hired ‘one of the world’s top IT security teams’ to limit the fall-out.