Hackers threaten to publish sex fantasies of 37m married users of adultery site

An adultery website with 37 million members looking for secret affairs has been hacked and personal details posted online. Ashley Madison, an international dating site with the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair”, was targeted by a group calling itself The Impact Team. The group claims it has complete access to Ashley Madison’s database of members, financial records and other personal information. It is threatening to publish online all the information, including details of members’ sexual fantasies, unless the site closes.

We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information.

Avid Life Media statement

The Impact Team has also compromised two other dating sites; Cougar Life and Established Men. For now, the group has released just 40MB of data, including some credit card details and several documents about the sites’ parent company, Avid Life Media. The hackers, who are upset over the full delete service offered to members who leave the site, said: “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.” ALM said it had secured the site, adding: “Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible.”

Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie. Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

The Impact Team statement

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