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Online dating site Ashley Madison, which specialises in setting-up already married members and has the tagline “life is short. Have an affair” has been the victim of a cyber attack.
A group calling themselves The Impact Team claims it has complete access to Ashley Madison’s database of more than 37 million members, as well as financial records and other personal information. The group has also compromised two other dating sites; Cougar Life and Established Men, that are owned by the same parent company, Avid Life Media (ALM).
ALM has confirmed the hack is genuine via a statement posted online, and the hackers have also released a statement threatening to release intimate account holder details if two of ALM’s sites are not closed permanently. So far just 40Mb of data has been leaked.
“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. The other websites may stay online,” said the statement.
The hackers’ main issue with the site appears to be a leavers fee that Ashley Madison charges users. The site offers a “full delete” of data for £15 should a user choose to leave the service permanently. Although it is possible to be anonymous on the site for free, the site says the delete service is the only way to completely remove data from their servers.
But The Impact Team has said this is a “complete lie”, and details such as real name and address are never removed – information the hackers suggest is likely to be “the most important” that users want removed.
In their own statement, ALM said: “We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. The current business world has proven to be one in which no company’s online assets are safe from cyber-vandalism, with Avid Life Media being only the latest among many companies to have been attacked, despite investing in the latest privacy and security technologies.
“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorised access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act. Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber–terrorism will be held responsible.”
Interestingly, in a study by online rights campaign group EFF done in 2012, Ashley Madison was praised for the way it deleted data after a user closed their account.
