Hackers have threatened to unveil personal information of the 37 million users of dating website Ashley Madison, which is targeted for married people who want to cheat.
Citing KrebsonSecurity, which broke the story on Sunday, Reuters reported that Ashley Madison 's Canadian parent Avid Life Media is working with law enforcement officials to trace the hack and that it has already secured the website. The company also apologized to users for the intrusion to their privacy
The report said Avid Life will allow users to erase information about them on the site, which it had previously offered for $19. The hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, said the website does not remove all the information but Ashley Madison disputed this.
The hackers, who call themselves the Impact team, threatened to release users' information such as credit card information, names, addresses, nude photos and sexual fantasies unless Avid Life Media permanently takes down Ashley Madison and affiliate Established Men .
Based on the report on the incident by KrebsonSecurity, the hackers appear to be motivated by disgust for cheaters on Ashley Madison, whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair."
"Too bad for those men, they're cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion. 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," reported KrebsonSecurity, citing the hackers.
Avid Life CEO Noel Biderman suspects an insider to be behind the breach.
Reuters noted that the hacking incident may affect Ashley Madison's planned initial public offering to raise $200 million on the London Stock Exchange.
It added that hacking attack on Ashley Madison follows a similar attack on dating website Adult FriendFinder two months ago. The other site has 64 million members.
