Hackers just released tons of information on Ashley Madison users

Cheating on one’s spouse is one of things that you’re obviously going to want to keep very secret, which is why so many people are sweating over the recent Ashley Madison hack. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Ashley Madison caters to people looking to hookup with someone who isn’t their spouse, and tens of millions of its users just had their personal information leaked online by hackers. The company that owns the website is currently trying to verify the validity of all the data, but so far it looks pretty legit. 

AshleyMadison.com’s owner said Tuesday it is examining a large batch of data posted online by hackers who breached the website last month. A group calling itself Impact Team initially posted a sample of the data online on July 19, giving the site’s owner, Avid Life Media, a month to shut down AshleyMadison.com and another site, Establishedmen.com. The group in part contested the moral position of Ashley Madison, which caters to people seeking extramarital affairs. Avid Life Media, based in Toronto, said in a statement that it is “actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online.” “This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,” the company said. Avid Life Media has hired independent forensic investigators and is working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Police Services and the FBI. In a note on Pastebin, Impact Team claimed it had exposed the fraud, deceit and stupidity of Avid Life Media, including links to the files posted on the sharing service Mega and a torrent file. The file posted on Mega appears to be 8.68 GB and is titled ashleymadison_db_dump. The links to the files on Mega, however, were quickly disabled late Tuesday.