On July 19th it was discovered that one of the biggest cheating websites was hacked. Ashley Madison, which is owned by Toronto-based Company, Avid Life Media, claims to have more than 37 million users.
Highly compromising data on millions of people, who had profiles on the extramarital-affairs dating website, was leaked online yesterday.
The dump reportedly contains more than 15,000 US military and governmental email addresses, according to one researcher.
According to a leaked document that was posted here, there are “6,788 us.army.mil addresses, another 1,665 navy.mil ones, and 809 usmc.mil.”
The hackers call themselves the “Impact Team” and claim to have every user’s real name and address, as well as emails, credit card information, nude pictures, conversations, and secret sexual fantasies.
Someone also anonymously posted a document, claiming to be Ashley Madison users, that lists every official government email registered on the website. These emails were not just junior enlisted service members; many of the emails matched those associated with social media profiles of high ranking officers.
The people behind the ‘Impact Team’ say they were motivated by the fact that Avid Life Media charges users to delete their information from the site.
Security experts warn, however, that some of the email addresses may very well be fake, because Ashley Madison doesn’t verify them to sign up. So, anyone could create an account with an email address that contains the name of some celebrity or well-known figure.
Ashley Madison’s chief technology officer told Krebs that his team of investigators has reviewed “more than 100GB of data purporting to be from the site’s databases. Little of it, he said, has proved legitimate.”
He goes on to say that, “The overwhelming amount of data released in the last three weeks is fake data.”
While B.I. has not independently verified the findings, “the sheer volume of military email addresses very strongly suggests that highly private information on many thousands of military personnel has been leaked online.”
When news of the hack first broke, Impact Team threatened to dump the full data-set on all Ashley Madison customers. It appears that’s just what they did.
The data was accompanied by a statement saying: “Avid Life Media has failed to take down Ashley Madison and [partner site] Established Men. We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data.”
Avid Life Media said in a statement “this event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality… We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.”
The company is working with law enforcement to “seek to hold the guilty parties accountable to the strictest measures of the law.”
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