August 19, 2015 — A hacking group called “The Impact Team” has dumped 9.7-gigabytes of data from 32 million Ashley Madison users on the dark web.
Wired reports that the data appears to include account information (log-in, name, address, and phone number), at least some of which is fake.
The data also includes credit card and payment transaction details for seven years dating back to 2007. No credit card numbers, but names, addresses, email addresses, and transaction amounts linked to those numbers were released. Descriptions of what members were seeking and encrypted passwords were also released.
Hackers took issue with Ashley Madison for charging users $20 for a “Full Delete,” and then retaining personally-identifiable user information.
Last month, hackers threatened to release the data unless Ashley Madison and Established Men were taken offline. Avid Life Media (ALM), the highly-profitable parent company of both websites, ignored the warnings and kept both websites online. Hackers wrote in a statement accompanying the dump:
“Find yourself in here? It was ALM that failed you and lied to you. Prosecute them and claim damages. Then move on with your life. Learn your lesson and make amends. Embarrassing now, but you’ll get over it.”
The data is only accessible through Onion addresses through the Tor browser. Anyone who retrieves the data could post it on websites indexed by traditional search engines, but those links often have spyware and malware.