Monday 31 August 2015

Is Ashley Madison Hack Story More About Cybersecurity Or Infidelity?

The long-awaited Ashley Madison data release came Tuesday as hackers dumped some 9.7 gigabyte’s worth of user information on the dark web.

A lot of files – which includes user account credentials, billing records and sexual fetishes for some 37 million customers of the infidelity site – has been circulating online Tuesday in the form of a massive, 10-gigabyte torrent.

A separate analysis of the data found that the city with the highest concentration of Ashley Madison users was Washington DC, and that some 15,000 email addresses involved were hosted on US government and military servers.

“We are actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online and will continue to devote significant resources to this effort”, said social media director Anthony Macri.

“We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members….” Sony had to cancel the much-anticipated release of the comedy film The Interview previous year after hackers threatened action if the film was released theatrically.

But he stressed that an email address on the dating database is not proof the person associated with it ever registered with or visited the site, because Ashley Madison did not use an email verification system to check users are linked to that address.

Up to 700 Australian government and police workers have been revealed as account holders on the Ashley Madison dating web service, following a leak by hacking group Impact Team. “Now everyone gets to see their data”, the group wrote in its data dump.

According to Trustify’s Danny Boice, he claims that they are getting about one search per second, and that there are just as many men using the tool as there are women. “If that distinction matters”.

Avid Life has once hoped to raise up to $200 million by going public in London in 2015. “Then move on with your life”, the statement read. However, Ashley Madison does not require users verify their addresses, so conceivably, anyone can sign anyone else up.

“This dump appears to be legit”, said David Kennedy, CEO of information security company TrustedSec, which monitors cyber attacks, in a blog post. In its statement, Avid Life Mediaaccused the hackers of seeking to impose “a personal notion of virtue on all of society”

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