Dating site, used to betray, most famous of America has millions of private user information stolen by hackers. The stolen data may include names and credit card information, photos and records sexually explicit chat.
Hackers are against the morally dubious business model Ashley Madison, and they are trying to blackmail the site to be shut down.
Ashley Madison is a contemptible site that helps people betray their spouses
Ashley Madison has caused controversy by positioning itself as a site for people looking to cheat their spouses. founded in 2001, the site says it has 37 millions of users around the world. The site's slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.”
The site gambled on its reputation to attract customers. In 2009, the site tried to buy a television ad during the Super Bowl, but the offer was rejected. But the very rejection was highlighted in the press, and the ad ended with over a million views on YouTube. The company also sought to buy the rights to the Meadowlands Stadium, where the New York Giants and Jets play, but it was rejected.
The site has faced at least one charge that many of the female profiles on the site are false.
The company behind the site, Avid Life Media, also has several other sites, including Established Men, a website that connects young women with “successful and generous benefactors to meet their lifestyle needs.”
Hackers are threatening to publish user data, unless the site is taken down
A group of hackers, which calls itself or Impact Team, invaded the site, a company spokesperson confirmed to journalist Brian Krebs on Sunday night. Hackers say they have obtained user information from Ashley Madison and various websites, minor, dating that are owned by Avid Life Media.
“Avid Life Media has been instructed to make Ashley Madison e Established Men offline permanently in all forms”, He wrote the hacker group in a statement on Sunday. HE ALM not comply, “we will release all customer records, including profiles with secret sexual fantasies of all customers, transaction information with credit cards, real names and addresses, and documents and e-mails of employees.”
To show that they are talking seriously, hackers released, selected information, sites.
Hackers claim that the paid service “full delete” It does not work as protection – but Avid Life disagrees with this information
In addition to charge customers who use the site, Ashley Madison also makes money by charging users US $20 to exclude completely to your information on the site.
But in a statement provided to Krebs, hackers say full delete does not work. “Users often pay by credit card, the details of your purchase are not removed as promised, including the actual name and address, what is, naturally, the most important information of the users want to remove” He wrote the hacker group.
Avid Life contest this complaint. “The process involves complete removal of the requesting user profile, including the removal of posted photos and all messages sent to e-mail boxes of other users of the system”, the company told the Washington Post.
If you have an account on Ashley Madison, you should care
We do not know the amount of data that hackers have, We do not even know what they will do with this information. They say they will release the data, unless Ashley Madison disable the site – and this does not seem very likely. But hackers can be bluffing, or they may not have as much information as they say. But it is also possible that they will follow through with his threat, exposing millions of married people to public embarrassment.
Avid Life is using a law, call Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so that the information disclosed by hackers so far are removed from the internet. However, it is unlikely to be more than a palliative measure, because once the data has been released to the public, it becomes almost impossible to stop its spread.
Do not think that Brazilians are safe. Here are more than three million registered, It is the second country with more members, shortly after the US.
