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Ashley Madison Hack Has Been Cleaned Up, Says Company

Online dating site for married people Ashley Madison fell victim to a hack over the weekend, putting the personal information of over 37 million users in jeopardy. Now, the company says it has scrubbe...
Ashley Madison Hack Has Been Cleaned Up, Says Company
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Online dating site for married people Ashley Madison fell victim to a hack over the weekend, putting the personal information of over 37 million users in jeopardy.

    Now, the company says it has scrubbed all leaked info.

    “Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), our team has now successfully removed the posts related to this incident as well as all Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about our users published online. We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds and are pleased that the provisions included in the DMCA have been effective in addressing this matter,” says the company.

    According to security researcher Brian Krebs, who first reported the hack, those responsible laid out a manifesto for their actions, claiming that Ashley Madison mislead customers, and that was the impetus behind the hack:

    From Krebs:

    In a long manifesto posted alongside the stolen ALM data, The Impact Team said it decided to publish the information in response to alleged lies ALM told its customers about a service that allows members to completely erase their profile information for a $19 fee.

     

    According to the hackers, although the “full delete” feature that Ashley Madison advertises promises “removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site,” users’ purchase details — including real name and address — aren’t actually scrubbed.

    “Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” the hackers continued. “Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver. We’ve got the complete set of profiles in our DB dumps, and we’ll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online. And with over 37 million members, mostly from the US and Canada, a significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people,” they said.

    In a statement from Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison’s parent company confirmed the attack soon after Krebs’ report, saying,

    “We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. The current business world has proven to be one in which no company’s online assets are safe from cyber-vandalism, with Avid Life Media being only the latest among many companies to have been attacked, despite investing in the latest privacy and security technologies.”

    Earlier this year, dating site Adult Friend Finder was hacked, exposing more than three million users.

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