# Lifestyles & Discussion > Privacy & Data Security >  Ashley Madison hack exposes millions of users [updated]

## Warrior_of_Freedom

> Ashley Madison, the dating website that purports to connect people looking for an affair, has been the victim of a hack that has exposed the personal data of its 37 million users. Krebs on Security is reporting that the perpetrators are a hacker or hackers going by the name of Impact Team. So far, only a small selection of information has been uploaded, but the group is threatening to post the entire haul unless Ashley Madison and sister site Established Men are shut down for good. CEO Noel Biderman has confirmed that the attack is legitimate and has pledged to take down compromising files as they're found online. Not that it's likely to be much comfort to the people waking up to find their personal details splashed across the internet.
> 
> *It's believed that the hack was carried out because of a much-derided feature that the company offers called Full Delete. Should a user wish to leave the site, they can pay a $19 fee* to have all of their personal data scrubbed from the Madison servers. There's only one catch: according to Impact Team, it's all a lie, and despite making $1.7 million from the service in 2014, the data remains safely preserved.
> 
> For his part, Biderman believes that the attack was an inside job and that he is close to confirming the identity of the culprit. Right now, it's thought that the person wasn't an employee, but someone who had "touched" the company's "technical services." That makes sense, since the Impact Team statement offers an apology to Mark Steele, the website's director of security.
> 
> At the time of publication, Ashley Madison remains online, but we imagine that we'll be spending the rest of the day updating this piece as new developments occur. Perhaps the company should change its tagline from "life is short, have an affair" to "it's all fun and games until everybody finds out."


http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/20/ashley-madison-hack/

Can't say I feel bad

----------


## Suzanimal

> It's believed that the hack was carried out because of a much-derided feature that the company offers called Full Delete. Should a user wish to leave the site, they can pay a $19 fee to have all of their personal data scrubbed from the Madison servers. There's only one catch: according to Impact Team, it's all a lie, and despite making $1.7 million from the service in 2014, the data remains safely preserved.


Wow. If that's the case, people should sue them.

I went to the site to see what it is but you can't see anything unless you sign up so I checked out their FB page and there's no mention of the leak there. Their FB page has a lot of hate on it though, lol.

Here's one of the meme's they posted...wow, they're shameless.

----------


## Warrior_of_Freedom

I've seen their billboards around. The tagline was something like "Life's short, get a divorce."

----------


## Suzanimal

> I've seen their billboards around. The tagline was something like "Life's short, get a divorce."


On their FB page it's  “Life is short. Have an affair”. I wonder if this site was set up by divorce lawyers.

----------


## thoughtomator

The fun part comes when they cross reference those records against the OPM hack.

----------


## Carlybee

Never even heard of it

----------


## oyarde

Hell , they run TV commercials .

----------


## Lucille

Ottawans Outed - 1 In 5 Found To Be "Cheating Dirtbags Who Deserve No Discretion"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...-no-discretion




> Canada's capital city, Ottawa, is, as MSN reports, also it's most potentially adulterous. Around 1 in 5 of the population is registered on Ashley Madison - the recently hacked social network for married people looking for an affair. The hotbed of infidelity was also the seat of power: *The top postal code for new members matched that of Parliament Hill*, according to Avid Live chief executive Noel Biderman in a newspaper report published earlier this year.
> [...]
> *Biderman said capital cities around the world typically top subscription rates, a phenomenon he chalks up to "power, fame and opportunity," along with the risk-taking personalities that find themselves in political cities.*  The Ottawa mayor's office and city council either declined to comment or did not return emails.


Raise your hand if you're surprised!  

Politicians are scum.  I hope they out the fascists in Mordor on the Potomac too.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

I just learned about this site yesterday, when my son posted on FB how the sanctity of marriage is being challenged by them just as much as gays (in so many ways).

----------


## kahless

I think Howard Stern used to be funny years ago but I called up Sirius and cancelled telling them it was due to the Ashley Madison commercials running during his show.  

Comedy is one thing but when you get to the point your promoting a company that advocates adultery I am out.

----------


## jllundqu

This is hilarious.  Imagine the names in that site.... please oh please release those names!

----------


## enhanced_deficit

This is a national security issue now?

http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/31/wh...security-risk/

----------


## timosman

> This is a national security issue now?


Yup.




> If we assume that half of the 50 million compromised Avid Life records are U.S. records, which seems a conservative assumption, and that the people who used the sites are representative of the general population, then the numbers below represent roughly the number of Americans in each of those categories.
> 
> 1,250 Federal and State elected officials2,500 FBI employees2,500 NSA employees2,175 full time nuclear power plant workers3,500 TSA employees25,000 DHS employees35,000 local elected officials60,000 people with top secret security clearance
> 
> These are people whose marital indiscretions, nude pictures, and sexual proclivities are now in the hands of anonymous hackers calling themselves the Impact Group. If that doesnt scare the hell out of you, then you have clearly never seen a good spy movie.

----------


## Brian4Liberty

Hackers Post What Appears To Be All of the Stolen Ashley Madison Account Data
Written by Nicholas Deleon - August 18, 2015




> As threatened a few weeks ago, the hackers who managed to break into Ashley Madison’s servers have now allegedly posted the data from that hack online. The data, which weighs in at nearly 10GB, was initially posted to a .onion address on the dark web.
> 
> “Avid Life Media has failed to take down Ashley Madison and Established Men,” the hackers wrote in a message accompanying the leaked data. “We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data.”
> 
> Industrious folks on 4chan are already combing through the names, with one user finding a whole host of email addresses that appear to belong to members of the British government.
> 
> This will be an interesting couple of days for some people.
> ...
> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hac...n-account-data





> Hackers who stole sensitive customer information from the cheating site AshleyMadison.com appear to have made good on their threat to post the data online.
> 
> A data dump, 9.7 gigabytes in size, was posted on Tuesday to the dark web using an Onion address accessible only through the Tor browser. The files appear to include account details and log-ins for some 32 million users of the social networking site, touted as the premier site for married individuals seeking partners for affairs. Seven years worth of credit card and other payment transaction details are also part of the dump, going back to 2007. The data, which amounts to millions of payment transactions, includes names, street address, email address and amount paid. AshleyMadison.com claimed to have nearly 40 million users at the time of the breach about a month ago, all apparently in the market for clandestine hookups.
> 
> “Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating,” the site asserts on its homepage. “Have an Affair today on Ashley Madison. Thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands signup everyday looking for an affair…. With Our affair guarantee package we guarantee you will find the perfect affair partner.”
> 
> The data released by the hackers includes names, addresses and phone numbers submitted by users of the site, though it’s unclear if members provided legitimate details. A sampling of the data indicates that users likely provided random numbers and addresses, but files containing credit card transactions will yield real names and addresses, unless members of the site used anonymous pre-paid cards. *One analysis of email addresses found in the data dump also shows that some 15,000 are .mil. or .gov addresses.* 
> ...
> http://www.wired.com/2015/08/happene...-madison-data/

----------


## Brian4Liberty

Obama administration emails found in Ashley Madison data dump
By Pete Kasperowicz • 8/19/15




> Hundreds of email addresses from the Obama White House and key federal agencies appear to have been uncovered in a leaked list of clients who use Ashley Madison, the website that encourages people to sign up for a chance to cheat on their spouse.
> 
> Hackers broke into the cheating website, and late Tuesday, Wired.com reported that information on 32 million users was posted on a "dark" website used by well-known hackers. The data includes much of the personal information of the alleged users, and one link made available breaks the data down into how many clients come from various government websites.
> 
> According to that link, thousands of members of the U.S. military appear to be clients of Ashley Madison. But there also appear to be hundreds of users from other key agencies, including the White House.
> ...
> The list says there are 44 emails registered on the Ashley Madison site with a "WhiteHouse.gov" address.
> 
> The largest non-military user of Ashley Madison appears to be the Department of Veterans Affairs. The leaked summary shows 104 emails from "va.gov."
> ...

----------


## RonPaul4Prez2012

> Hackers Post What Appears To Be All of the Stolen Ashley Madison Account Data
> Written by Nicholas Deleon - August 18, 2015

----------


## pcosmar

> *"The public needs to be aware that by clicking on these links you are exposing your computers to malware, spyware, adware and viruses."*


Nice fear tactic..

doesn't work on anyone smart enough to not use windoze.

----------


## Lucille

LOL Yeah, the Russians did it.

Joe Biden's Son Blames "Russian Agents" For Ashley Madison Profile
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...adison-profile



> Last night we heard the best 'excuse' yet if you are caught with an Ashley Madison account, from Dan Loeb - "due diligence." Today, not to be outdone by a married hedge fund manager, Vice-President Joe Biden's son "Hunter" has unleashed his own set of excuses for member ship of the extramarital affairs website, as Breitbart reports  - Biden thinks international agents, possibly Russian, who objected to his board membership with a Ukrainian gas company set up a fake account to discredit him. However, IP mapping suggests otherwise...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s account on the extramarital dating website Ashley Madison was used and likely created on the Georgetown University campus while Biden was teaching there.
> 
> Business executive Robert “Hunter” Biden, reportedly an adviser to his father’s political career, told Breitbart News Monday that he suspected his enemies of creating a fake Ashley Madison account for him in order to discredit him. The email address provided for “Robert Biden’s” account matched a personal email address once used by Biden, the vice president’s son confirmed.
> ...

----------

