Up to 1 million Australians could be exposed Ashley Madison site hack

UP TO a million Australians could be at risk of having their affairs exposed after cheating dating website Ashley Madison was hacked on Monday.

Cheating Aussies could be exposed after data hack

UP TO a million Australians could be at risk of having their affairs exposed after cheating dating website Ashley Madison was hacked on Monday.

The Canadian-based company, which sells itself using the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair”, told news.com.au it has 1 million Australian members, according to internal data, but would not clarify whether this figure was based on the number of people signed up or the number of Australian profiles.

Avid Life Media, which owns Ashley Madison, said that an “unauthorised party” was able to gain access to the data through various unauthorised points on the website.

A group calling itself “the Impact Team” claimed responsibility and said it was part of an effort to shut down Ashley Madison. The hacker group, in statements posted online, said that Ashley Madison and a related site called Established Men “must shut down immediately permanently.”

“Shutting down AM and EM will cost you, but noncompliance will cost you more,” the statement said.

“We will release all customer records, profiles with all the customers’ sexual fantasies, nude pictures and conversations and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses.”

Noel Biderman, CEO of Avid Life Media, said a hacker with ties to the site’s technical services is the culprit behind the breach.

‘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,’ Biderman told Krebs On Security.

Avid Life said some personally identifiable information was posted online before being removed by “one of the world’s top IT security teams”.

“Our team has now successfully removed the posts related to this incident ... about our users published online,” Avid Life Media said.

“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorised access points,” the company said.

“We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information.”

The company said it was now offering members a “full delete” of their profiles in light of the attack. Previously, members had to pay a $US20 fee to remove their profile data.

“The process involves a hard-delete of a requesting user’s profile, including the removal of posted pictures and all messages sent to other system users’ email boxes,” the company said.

It said it has “stringent security measures in place, including working with leading IT vendors from around the world.” “These security measures have unfortunately not prevented this attack to our system,” Avid Life added.

But one New York woman who has used the site for four years says she is confident her identity will remain a secret.

“Finding me will be like finding a needle in a haystack,” a woman named Angela, age 44, told The Mirror.

The mum of three says she’s hooked up with people around the US and in London after her sex life dwindled.

“My husband is a loving man and a wonderful father but we have not been intimate since I had my third child.

“My husband cannot handle my need for sex and although we’ve never discussed it I suspect he knows I’ve not been faithful. I cannot and do not want to walk away from him or the kids however.

“People will see me as a s*** but I don’t want to walk away from my husband. Ashley Madison fulfils my needs without emotional baggage.”

Angela uses the site once or twice a year and says it is “almost impossible” she will be exposed.

“Anyway I use my own personal account which is attached to my maiden name so I’m fairly confident my secret will be safe. The probability of me being found out is almost impossible.”

Ashley Madison was founded in 2001 and claims it has 37 million members in more than 46 countries worldwide.

The company said a new user joins every six seconds, and that it is “the world’s largest website for married men and women looking to have a discreet affair.” The incident is the latest in a series of high-profile data breaches affecting companies as well as government databases.

It comes two months after a leak of stolen data from 3.9 million members of Adult FriendFinder, which claims to be “the world’s largest sex and swinger” community.