Cheating spouses Web site AshleyMadison.com, facing hackers’ threats to leak clients’ nude photos and sexual fantasies, said it is heartened by some initial public responses that see the site as a victim.
The site’s Canadian parent, Avid Life Media, confirmed a breach of its systems that has put the real names, credit card information and other details of as many as 37 million customers at risk. Avid Life said it has since secured the sites and closed unauthorized access points.
The company has hired UK cybersecurity firm Sycura to investigate the breach, first reported by the Krebs on Security blog, and is working with police to trace those behind the attack, Avid Life spokesman Paul Keable said.
Photo: AP
AshleyMadison.com, which uses the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair,” has been planning to raise up to US$200 million through an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.
A group calling itself Impact Team said it had taken over Avid Life systems, including customer databases, source code, financial records and e-mails, according to a screen grab shown on the Krebs on Security blog.
“Shutting down AM [Ashley Madison] and EM [Established Men] will cost you, but non-compliance will cost you more,” the hackers said.
EstablishedMen.com, widely described as a “sugar daddy site,” is another Avid Life Media property.
The hackers leaked snippets of the compromised data online and warned that they would release customers’ real names, profiles, nude photos, credit card details and “secret sexual fantasies” unless AshleyMadison.com and EstablishedMen.com are taken down, Krebs said.
“There’s a very strong narrative that criminal activity, vigilantism, is not the way forward, because who gets to be the judge and jury?” Keable said at Avid Life’s midtown Toronto offices, citing articles in what he called “major media outlets.”
The hackers said that a “paid delete” function would not remove all information about a member’s profile and communications.
Avid Life said that claim is untrue and it would offer the function free of charge following the breach. Avid Life has about 160 employees, mostly in Toronto but also in Cyprus, Brazil, Japan and elsewhere.
In an interview with Krebs on Security, Avid Life chief executive officer Noel Biderman was cited as saying the company suspected someone who had had access to internal networks as being behind the breach.
“It was definitely a person here that was not an employee but certainly had touched our technical services,” he said.
Unauthorized posts and images on the Web site detailing the hacker’s demands have since been removed.
“We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information,” Avid Life said.
The breach comes about two months after dating site Adult FriendFinder was compromised. That site has an estimated 64 million members.
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