With a motto bluntly reading: “Life is short. Have an Affair” (and priding themselves as the ‘premiere website for discreet connection’s–something was bound to happen to a business like such.
Sh\t over at Ashley Madison just got real too, and with just the push of a button, there’s certainly going to be lots of homes on fire when hackers of the cheating site release the website’s information which includes its married clients who use its services (and the accommodating adulterers who accommodate the u-‘til-lies-zing).
According to reports, the public data dump can include up to about 37 million user profiles that would be of great interest to wives and husbands everywhere.
People (especially women) have carried a long, deep-seated hatred of the site by which you’ve probably seen its owners play ring around the rosey many-a-talk shows-trying to sell their business as a necessity and alternative for people who…well..let’s not belabor the obvious: CHEAT.
WHY YOUR SPOUSE ENDS UP ON ASHLEY MADISON
The group of hackers calling themselves “The Impact Team” are threatening to dump the data unless the parent company (Avid Life Media) shuts the site down.
Although we don’t have an ETA on the deadline on the threat as yet, reportedly, a double-threat is on the table to have AshleyMadison.com and its sister site (EstablishedMen.com) be shut down on the strength that the group is now in possession of both site’s roster of real names, credit card numbers and…sexual fantasies.
“Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” said the hackers in their manifesto.
“Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver. We’ve got the complete set of profiles in our database dumps, and we’ll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online. And with over 37 million members, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, a significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people.”
ALM’s chief exec Noel Biderman confirmed the threat to Krebsonsecurity.com and feels the incident may be traceable and made possible by the hands of someone who’s had access to the company’s data in the past.
“We’re on the doorstep of [confirming] who we believe is the culprit, and unfortunately that may have triggered this mass publication. I’ve got their profile right in front of me, all their work credentials. It was definitely a person here that was not an employee but certainly had touched our technical services.”
This new attack comes just on the heels of a breach of security at Adultfriendfinder.com in May [2015]. The details were that nearly four million users of the site was lost in the hacking which reportedly, the sexual preferences, email addresses, user names, dates of birth and zip codes of the site’s users was stolen.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL PRIVACY
Unfortunately, nothing done online or by computer is completely hacker-safe.
Although you may not be on AshleyMadison.com or EstablishedMen.com, as long as you have an email address (or any place where you do business) owns a computer, this could happen to you as well.
Any computer engineer will tell you that the way the Internet is built, everything is insecure.
The good part about that is that encryption and buying things to protect ourselves is on the market.
The bad thing about that is: For every thing we can purchase for “protecting” our privacy and information [on our personal computers at home or on companies’ databases] is vulnerable just the same. Everything is tracked and insecure.
A CNN cyber crime article gave the very best analogy of all:
[quote]
To keep your notes private, mathematicians come up with complex algorithms to encrypt communication. It’s like putting military armor on your car as it drives down that perilous road.
But in reality, the enemies always find a way to pierce the armor.
Some websites don’t even use encryption. It’s like forcing you to ride naked on a bicycle.
Some websites use encryption that’s outdated. It’s like sending you out there with rusted armor.
Lots of people keep using glitchy software like Adobe Flash. It’s like leaving your door wide open.
And even if you’re really careful online, the devices themselves get infected with malware. Even if you made it to the military base on the other side, don’t celebrate yet. Because you just handed your note over to a guy who’s actually a spy [end quote]
Spitfire .
Media Maestro .
Writing Rhinoceros .
