The homepage of the Ashley Madison website is displayed on an iPad, in this photo illustration taken in Ottawa, Canada July 21, 2015.
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The Ashley Madison hack is turning into the ideal Internet news story, taunting hackers, 32 million emails of would-be cheaters and a river of woe.
A second dump of information was released later, which was 19GB, with the additional data taking aim at the company’s executives, according to reports.
Hackers got into the website and released the addresses of all the people on its books, although web experts have warned that some people’s details may have ended up linked to the site without their knowledge.
The company confirmed Thursday it doesn’t verify the email addresses used to sign up for the service, nor does it collect phone numbers or store full credit-card numbers. Its class-action status “still needs to be certified by the court”, the statement says. Denise Knowles, a counsellor at Relate, said that the leak had brought up “lots of hard emotions” for the partners of those with an Ashley Madison account.
The AP also reports that those government employees involved in the hack are a part of more than two dozen different agencies.
“The data breach affected everybody, but those individuals who paid a fee to have their information deleted from Ashley Madison’s records, have every reason to be that much more upset”, he said in an interview. Robins says the firm is still looking for other subscribers who might want to put their names on the suit.
A couple of years ago, I went under cover (so to speak) on Ashley Madison and had a look around using a fake name and photo.
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Some State databases containing personal information may be less well-protected than commercial outlets such as the hacked Ashley Madison adultery site, a privacy rights group has warned. “Generally they’re less well protected than private databases”, Dr McIntyre said.
