The Ashley Madison hack rampage began last month after a group of hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, threatened to release very intimate, personal information of over 32 million members of the cheating website if it remains under operation. The Impact Team hackers also involved members of Ashley Madison's sister site, EstablishedMen.
However, Ashley Madison, as well as Established Men, have not decided to go offline. The Ashley Madison hack blew up, with the hackers going ahead with their promised threats of releasing the official data list of the members Sunday morning, August 16.
Media websites have not released the name of the Twitter account releasing the names under the Ashley Madison hack for the protection of those on the list, but the account has already garnered over 4,000 followers after its firts 40 tweets, reported The Inquisitr.
The shocking details released by the Twitter user include member' full names, job positions, employers, exact dates they used Ashley Madison and even their photos. It appears no member is safe from the Ashley Madison hack. Members ranging from doctors to teachers, and how much they paid and when they used the website are being publicized by the Twitter account of the hacker.
Not only are those personal information being revealed in the Ashley Madison hack, the Twitter account of the members are also being exposed. The Twitter handle of the business they may own are also unsafe and are revealed.
As a result, many have deleted their personal Twitter accounts, with some nearly eight years old already. It appears those exposed in the Ashley Madison hack are reacting and handling the shocking breach of info in their own ways.
Despite all the harrowing incident and all the personal info revealed in the Ashley Madison hack, the real problem lies with the members using their credit cards in the first place. Once a credit card is used, all personal information can be used against them in seconds.
The members of the infidelity site may have trusted the site too much, since there are rules, however they didn't realize that the hack could affect them and their families in the long run because of exposed credit card information.
More disturbing intimate information revealed in the Ashley Madison hack are home addresses, phone numbers, sexual fantasies as well as the last four digits of their credit cards.
According to The Inquisitr, members' profiles on Ashley Madison reveal graphic and detailed information of their inner most secret sexual fantasies.
While Ashley Madison has been proud of its status as being one of the leading websites for "secret and discreet sexual encounters for married individuals" with over 37 million users, members' information have undoubtedly been kept in an unsafe manner. For some reason as well, the members did not use the other, more discreet methods of payment offered by the website.
While the company behind the Ashley Madison website has issued its own statement regarding the Ashley Madison hack, reassuring members that their credit card numbers have not been stolen, the date dump isn't any less embarrassing.
"No current or past members' full credit card numbers were stolen from Avid Life Media. Any statements to the contrary are false. Avid Life Media has never stored members' full credit card numbers," according to the statement.
Wired has listed the following websites or tools to check if an email is involved in the Ashley Madison hack:
- Trustify - a website providing Internet investigation services related to romantic suspicions
- have i been pwned - a website alerting people if their emails have been breached
- This tool
- Or this one
How to use the tools:
- Step 1: Enter an email
- Step 2: If the email pops up on the list, the person who the email belongs to is tied to the Ashley Madison hack
There is also Troy Hunt, a tool allowing internet users to verify the email address being checked. Wired has reportedly tried using the tools above to verify emails they knew involved in the Ashley Madison hack, and all the tools above verified the emails, making them legit.
As for the Twitter user who instigated the Ashley Madison hack, the twitterer says the start of release of the members' names and details began noon on Wednesday. After nearly 40 tweets, the Twitter account has promised it will continue releasing names the next day.
