The hackers who threatened to expose the identities and profiles of all users of Ashley Madison, both former clients and current members of their roster, finally followed through with their promise earlier this year. In what could only be described as a deliberate move to obliterate the existence of Ashley Madison and humiliate the people who signed up for the service, the hackers, who were earlier identified as a group called Impact Team, released some 9.7 gigabytes worth of information stolen from the website. The released data included the user account names and payment details of the clients of Ashley Madison. Hence, the virtual community now has access to the email addresses, passwords and transition details of the members of Ashley Madison.
Tuesday saw the exposure of hundreds of clients of Ashley Madison - with the hackers sparing no profile in the first batch of members they opted to reveal, according to New York Times. Apart from Ashley Madison clients, the users of the other website managed by Avid Life Media, called Established Men, also found themselves in hot water. At the moment, the company's third website, Cougar Life, has not suffered from the same fate. It remains uncertain, however, if the hackers also managed to get in Cougar Life and if they intend to expose the clients in the same manner as that done to the members of Ashley Madison and Established Men.
To provide context with regard the nature of the websites handled by Avid Life Media, it could be recalled that Ashley Madison is recognized as a virtual dating and social networking service provider. The target market of the Ashley Madison site are people in committed relationships or are married. This is further echoed by the tag line of the site, "Life is short. Have an affair." As of this writing, the Ashley Madison website boasts of "over 38,920,000 anonymous members."
In a statement made earlier this year, the company managing Ashley Madison assured its users and client roster that safety measures with respect to their privacy had been implemented. Moreover, the company promised that intensive investigation was already underway to apprehend - and hopefully halt - the data breach.
"We were recently made aware of an attempt by an unauthorized party to gain access to our systems," said Avid Life Media in an official statement released to E News. The company added, "We immediately launched a thorough investigation utilizing leading forensics experts and other security professionals to determine the origin, nature, and scope of this incident. We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers' information." The company went on to say, "We have always had the confidentiality of our customers' information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place."
