Disturbing news for many people: Ashley Madison (a site intended for married people to arrange adulterous affairs) has been hacked, and some/most/all(?) of their data got stolen.
The hackers have made the following demand:
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.
Whether or not this will actually happen remains to be seen. Perhaps ALM will cave in, perhaps it’s just an idle threat…
But what if/when the data does get released? Good times for divorce lawyers, I guess. 😉
Are you registered on that site?
Yes. I vaguely recall checking out the site a couple of years ago. Not to spice up any part of my life, but simply to see what makes their site tick, how it’s built up.
For that same reason I have accounts on 1000’s of other sites. It keeps me informed of tips, tricks and techniques used to make web sites.
‘Should any/all the data come out, will we learn anything new about you’?
It’s been quite a while since my visit, but I probably entered the bare mimimum: an email address, a password, perhaps a username and/or a profile title. It’s not the kind of site I would ever enter any more personal information than I have to, since all I needed was to get inside. They most certainly don’t have any ‘personal preferences’ nor credit card numbers of me 😉
(There’s of course also a chance they’ve logged one/more IP addresses and time stamps.)
‘Why are you sharing this with us?’
Full disclosure 😎
The most recent development is that apparently now some Ashley Madison users receive blackmail letters via the postal mail.
I have not received such a letter myself yet. It’s unclear from the post whether Bitcoin is used, or some other form of payment is demanded. As suggested by the writer of the article: Take any such letters to your local law enforcement.
…and the first extortion emails are arriving:
By now I’ve received 3 emails like this one. They originate from different senders, but their contents are identical. A quick Google has already confirmed that the so-called ‘unique’ Bitcoin address isn’t unique at all. To anyone else who’s gotten an email like this one: Do not pay!
I’ve started a list/post where I’ll gather all the Bitcoin addresses I come across here.
Some people are paying, apparently…
GOD FORGIVE ALL STAY STRONG….
Intelligence agencies and digital crime rings are also grabbing their piece of the pie: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/251517-cyber-foes-likely-digging-through-ashley-madison-data
It’s the hack that keeps on giving, and gets exploited in any way possible: 😎
Forbes – Ashley Madison Users Vulnerable To New Threat