Hackers announced on Tuesday that they have leaked millions of personal data that was breached in a cyber-attack on Ashley Madison, an online dating website targeting people who are looking for extra-marital relationships.
FoxNews said that the hackers called themselves Impact Team, and had claimed the liability for the previous month's data breach which uploaded 9.7 gigabytes of so-called 'dark web,' as reference to the stolen user data. The data were uploaded and can only be opened using a specialized web browser.
According to the report of FoxNews, the leaked data has log-in details, e-mail and physical addresses and client names, as well as information of date of transactions since 2007. On the other hand, the data does not seem to include entire credit card numbers. Almost about 32 million e-mail accounts at Established Men and Ashley Madison, a website targeted at women searching for rich men to date, are also affected by the breach.
One of the victims of the breach is Michelle Thomson, the MP for Edinburgh West. Thomson said she was a victim of a black propaganda when she was named as the married SNP MP, whose e-mail address was among the millions posted online. She denied saying, "I am not aware of, or in contact with ... Ashley Madison, and look forward to finding out more about what has actually happened."
"This event is not an act of 'hacktivism', it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any free-thinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities," Avid Life Media explained in an official statement. "The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society," states a report in The Guardian.
Ashley Madison was founded in 2001 by Canadian businessman, Noel Biderman, and had gathered controversy as it condoned extra-marital affairs. The Toronto-based Avid Life Media said that they are cooperating with the authorities to solve this problem and to take on the culprits.
