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HACKERS VS CHEATERS.
In 2015, the world was shocked by a data leak: hackers broke into the dating site for married people, Ashley Madison. The data of 32 million users around the world got online: from names and emails to correspondence and preferences.
In this topic:
- How Ashley Madison worked and why it was so popular
- Who was behind the hacker group The Impact Team How many people suffered after the leak
- Divorces, extortion - the consequences of the hack
- Why no one was arrested
- And is the site alive today?
Contents:
— Introduction: How hackers destroyed millions of families
— What is Ashley Madison and what makes it unique
— How the site worked: fake profiles, paid features
— Vulnerabilities and lack of security
— The first warning from The Impact Team hackers
— Who is behind the attack: versions and a manifesto
— What was stolen: a full list of leaked data
— The company's reaction: denial, panic, and attempts to hide the fact of the hack
— Publication of data on the darknet: the first and second waves
— Real consequences: blackmail, divorces
— Global consequences: leakage of data of the military, officials, clergy
— Why no one was caught: anonymity and leaving without a trace
— What happened to Ashley Madison after the hack
Summer 2015. The Internet is abuzz with rumors. Unknown hackers claim that they have managed to hack Ashley Madison, a dating site for married people looking for adventure on the side. Hackers claim to have gained access to the entire database – from names and addresses to explicit correspondence and sexual preferences. At first, no one believes it, then panic. Because this is not just a dating site.
These are 32 million users worldwide. Google and Microsoft employees, military personnel, priests, teachers and officials. Everyone was in the database. And then there is a leak. A real digital apocalypse. In a matter of hours, the data becomes public. People lose their families, jobs, reputations. The first victims appear. In Canada, two confirmed suicides are directly related to the publication of this data.
A wave of divorces, lawsuits, scandals and even extortions engulfs dozens of countries. But the main question remains unanswered. Who was behind this attack and what drove them - a thirst for justice, personal revenge or just a desire to watch other people's lives fall apart? Today we will dive into the story that began as a hack of a dating site and ended in a mass tragedy. To understand why the attack on Ashley Madison was so devastating, you need to understand what kind of site it was and why its emergence was a challenge to society from the very beginning.
Founded in 2001 by Canadian company LiveMedia, the site offered a unique service. "If you are married but want to find a lover, we will help you do it safely and confidentially." The company's slogan sounded like a challenge. "Life is short, cheat."
Against the background of traditional dating sites, it looked bold. Even immoral, but business is business, and it was on the rise. By 2015, the site had more than 32 million registered users in 46 countries. A huge audience, especially in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Brazil. The target segment is men aged 30-50, most often married with an above-average income.
Marketing was aggressive, straightforward, selling a safe way to cheat. How did the system work? Registration was free, but you had to pay for communication. Men paid to send a message. And also for the FullDelete function, which allegedly deleted all account data without a trace. The price for full deletion was $ 19. But here's what's important, it later turned out, even after payment, the data did not disappear. Everything was saved in the database. Name, email, IP address, transaction history, geolocation - everything.
Ashley Madison actively created bots and fake female profiles to encourage the male audience to pay for correspondence. According to Gizmodo magazine, out of 5.5 million women on the site, less than 12 thousand were real active users. Automatic responses, scripts, imitation of interests - all for money.
Security? Almost none. The site stored passwords in MD5, an outdated hashing. The database was not encrypted properly. The account deletion service was a sham. User logs, including IP, were saved without anonymization. Insiders said that much was held together by crutches and the code was leaky, like a grate. Even before the hack, Ashley Madison had repeatedly become the target of criticism. For aggressive advertising, for unethical business, for manipulating users.
It was all but certain that someone would eventually take revenge, and in 2015, that moment arrived. On July 19, 2015, a message appeared on the desktops of Ashley Madison employees: “You have been hacked. We are The Impact Team. Remove the site or we will leak all your data.” At first it seems like a joke, but when they start examining the servers, everything becomes clear.
The company is completely compromised. The Impact Team left no trace, did not claim the old attacks, did not demand money, their manifesto is simple. Ashley Madison is a lie, a fraud built on fake women, deceived men and irresponsible storage of personal information. We demand that the site be closed, otherwise we will publish all the data. All of it. What exactly was stolen?
The volume of stolen data is gigantic, more than 30 million user accounts, names, emails, phone addresses, geolocations and search queries, hashed but easily hacked passwords, internal documents and employee correspondence, company financial reports. The Impact Team penetrated the deepest levels of the infrastructure. There are versions that an insider helped, but there is still no evidence.
White Life Media did not immediately publicly acknowledge the scale of the leak. They tried to act quietly, restore systems, give formal comments, but the hackers warned. You are lying, fine, we are publishing part of the data. And on August 18, 2015, they kept their word. Almost 10 gigabytes of data ended up on the Darknet and torrent trackers. A few days later, another 20 gigabytes.
Hundreds of thousands of names, addresses, phone numbers. Soon, lists of celebrities began to appear. Data on military and government officials, targeted downloads by country, interactive search engines for cheaters. Everything is in the public domain, without filters, without censorship. The media is going crazy, Reddit, 4chan, Twitter are filled with screenshots from the databases. Someone launches a site where you can check if your data has leaked.
The whole world is watching as the digital hell is raging. And this is just the beginning, followed by threats, blackmail, phishing of a real tragedy. Just a day after the leak, automatic scripts are launched on the Darknet, which download the Ashley Madison database and send letters to the owners of the leaked emails. We know what you did. Do you want your wife and colleagues not to find out? Pay one bitcoin, or everything will become public.
Sometimes these were not just phishing letters. Some really knew where to hit. They indicated work addresses, children's names, spouses' details. The site was built on confidentiality. But after the hack, millions of marriages were at risk. Some of the users were not active. Someone registered simply out of interest and did not write a single message, but in the eyes of the spouses it was a betrayal. In Canada, two suicides directly related to the data leak have been confirmed.
One of the deceased is a father of three children, who after the publicity began a divorce, was fired from his job and a harassment campaign was launched on social networks. According to some reports, several more cases were recorded in the USA. But they were not made public at the request of the families. The database included officials, US Army officers, even Catholic priests, some under real names, others - from corporate emails.
The Pentagon began an investigation. Dozens of employees were subject to an internal investigation for using government computers to register on the site. In some countries, officials resigned, criminal cases were opened. Fraudsters, spammers and hackers began to swirl around the database. Life Media was in a panic. They promised $500,000 for information about the hackers, removed sites with databases, changed the brand, renamed Ashley Madison, and completely changed the management.
But the reputation was burned to the ground. Immediately after the hack, the FBI and Canadian police began an investigation. They brought in cybersecurity experts, cryptoanalysts, and even profiling experts. The result? Not a single arrest, not a single public version with evidence, not a single hacker who would come out of the shadows. The main versions were as follows. An insider from the company.
This is the most popular theory among cyber experts. And here are the arguments. The Impact Team knew the internal infrastructure. The attack was selective. As if they knew where everything was stored. The hackers spoke in a language similar to a disgruntled employee. You are scammers. You are deceiving your customers. You knew that full-service does not work, we knew it too. Some even point to a woman, a former employee of the company, allegedly fired shortly before the hack, but the name was never officially announced.
The FBI did not deny this theory, but did not confirm it either. Activists or moral radicals. Some analysts believe that an informal group of people close to conservative or religious circles was behind the attack. They could have seen Ashley Madison as a moral threat, a call to sin, and decided that if the state does not punish, we will. You destroy families, we will destroy you.
But there is a problem. No known radical group has claimed responsibility for the hack. Competitors are the most controversial theory. The hack could have been staged by competitors in the adult market. But there is zero evidence and it looks more like a movie script than reality. So why was no one arrested? The data went through Tor and encrypted channels. Publications on the Darknet left no trace. The hackers did not negotiate, they could not be caught.
They disappeared as quickly as they appeared. What happened to Ashley Madison? The site survived the hack, but was completely rebranded. Ewait Life Media became Rubicor, the old management left, a new CEO appeared, who officially apologized and called the leak the darkest day in the history of the online dating industry. Today, the site still exists, but it is a shadow of its former self. Without the former popularity, without trust. The database is still online, it lives its own life.
There are dozens of copies on forums, on the Darknet, even on the open Internet. For many, this is a death sentence forever. It is difficult to explain to your wife that you just looked, if your name is in the leaked archive.
In 2015, the world was shocked by a data leak: hackers broke into the dating site for married people, Ashley Madison. The data of 32 million users around the world got online: from names and emails to correspondence and preferences.
In this topic:
- How Ashley Madison worked and why it was so popular
- Who was behind the hacker group The Impact Team How many people suffered after the leak
- Divorces, extortion - the consequences of the hack
- Why no one was arrested
- And is the site alive today?
Contents:
— Introduction: How hackers destroyed millions of families
— What is Ashley Madison and what makes it unique
— How the site worked: fake profiles, paid features
— Vulnerabilities and lack of security
— The first warning from The Impact Team hackers
— Who is behind the attack: versions and a manifesto
— What was stolen: a full list of leaked data
— The company's reaction: denial, panic, and attempts to hide the fact of the hack
— Publication of data on the darknet: the first and second waves
— Real consequences: blackmail, divorces
— Global consequences: leakage of data of the military, officials, clergy
— Why no one was caught: anonymity and leaving without a trace
— What happened to Ashley Madison after the hack
Summer 2015. The Internet is abuzz with rumors. Unknown hackers claim that they have managed to hack Ashley Madison, a dating site for married people looking for adventure on the side. Hackers claim to have gained access to the entire database – from names and addresses to explicit correspondence and sexual preferences. At first, no one believes it, then panic. Because this is not just a dating site.
These are 32 million users worldwide. Google and Microsoft employees, military personnel, priests, teachers and officials. Everyone was in the database. And then there is a leak. A real digital apocalypse. In a matter of hours, the data becomes public. People lose their families, jobs, reputations. The first victims appear. In Canada, two confirmed suicides are directly related to the publication of this data.
A wave of divorces, lawsuits, scandals and even extortions engulfs dozens of countries. But the main question remains unanswered. Who was behind this attack and what drove them - a thirst for justice, personal revenge or just a desire to watch other people's lives fall apart? Today we will dive into the story that began as a hack of a dating site and ended in a mass tragedy. To understand why the attack on Ashley Madison was so devastating, you need to understand what kind of site it was and why its emergence was a challenge to society from the very beginning.
Founded in 2001 by Canadian company LiveMedia, the site offered a unique service. "If you are married but want to find a lover, we will help you do it safely and confidentially." The company's slogan sounded like a challenge. "Life is short, cheat."
Against the background of traditional dating sites, it looked bold. Even immoral, but business is business, and it was on the rise. By 2015, the site had more than 32 million registered users in 46 countries. A huge audience, especially in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Brazil. The target segment is men aged 30-50, most often married with an above-average income.
Marketing was aggressive, straightforward, selling a safe way to cheat. How did the system work? Registration was free, but you had to pay for communication. Men paid to send a message. And also for the FullDelete function, which allegedly deleted all account data without a trace. The price for full deletion was $ 19. But here's what's important, it later turned out, even after payment, the data did not disappear. Everything was saved in the database. Name, email, IP address, transaction history, geolocation - everything.
Ashley Madison actively created bots and fake female profiles to encourage the male audience to pay for correspondence. According to Gizmodo magazine, out of 5.5 million women on the site, less than 12 thousand were real active users. Automatic responses, scripts, imitation of interests - all for money.
Security? Almost none. The site stored passwords in MD5, an outdated hashing. The database was not encrypted properly. The account deletion service was a sham. User logs, including IP, were saved without anonymization. Insiders said that much was held together by crutches and the code was leaky, like a grate. Even before the hack, Ashley Madison had repeatedly become the target of criticism. For aggressive advertising, for unethical business, for manipulating users.
It was all but certain that someone would eventually take revenge, and in 2015, that moment arrived. On July 19, 2015, a message appeared on the desktops of Ashley Madison employees: “You have been hacked. We are The Impact Team. Remove the site or we will leak all your data.” At first it seems like a joke, but when they start examining the servers, everything becomes clear.
The company is completely compromised. The Impact Team left no trace, did not claim the old attacks, did not demand money, their manifesto is simple. Ashley Madison is a lie, a fraud built on fake women, deceived men and irresponsible storage of personal information. We demand that the site be closed, otherwise we will publish all the data. All of it. What exactly was stolen?
The volume of stolen data is gigantic, more than 30 million user accounts, names, emails, phone addresses, geolocations and search queries, hashed but easily hacked passwords, internal documents and employee correspondence, company financial reports. The Impact Team penetrated the deepest levels of the infrastructure. There are versions that an insider helped, but there is still no evidence.
White Life Media did not immediately publicly acknowledge the scale of the leak. They tried to act quietly, restore systems, give formal comments, but the hackers warned. You are lying, fine, we are publishing part of the data. And on August 18, 2015, they kept their word. Almost 10 gigabytes of data ended up on the Darknet and torrent trackers. A few days later, another 20 gigabytes.
Hundreds of thousands of names, addresses, phone numbers. Soon, lists of celebrities began to appear. Data on military and government officials, targeted downloads by country, interactive search engines for cheaters. Everything is in the public domain, without filters, without censorship. The media is going crazy, Reddit, 4chan, Twitter are filled with screenshots from the databases. Someone launches a site where you can check if your data has leaked.
The whole world is watching as the digital hell is raging. And this is just the beginning, followed by threats, blackmail, phishing of a real tragedy. Just a day after the leak, automatic scripts are launched on the Darknet, which download the Ashley Madison database and send letters to the owners of the leaked emails. We know what you did. Do you want your wife and colleagues not to find out? Pay one bitcoin, or everything will become public.
Sometimes these were not just phishing letters. Some really knew where to hit. They indicated work addresses, children's names, spouses' details. The site was built on confidentiality. But after the hack, millions of marriages were at risk. Some of the users were not active. Someone registered simply out of interest and did not write a single message, but in the eyes of the spouses it was a betrayal. In Canada, two suicides directly related to the data leak have been confirmed.
One of the deceased is a father of three children, who after the publicity began a divorce, was fired from his job and a harassment campaign was launched on social networks. According to some reports, several more cases were recorded in the USA. But they were not made public at the request of the families. The database included officials, US Army officers, even Catholic priests, some under real names, others - from corporate emails.
The Pentagon began an investigation. Dozens of employees were subject to an internal investigation for using government computers to register on the site. In some countries, officials resigned, criminal cases were opened. Fraudsters, spammers and hackers began to swirl around the database. Life Media was in a panic. They promised $500,000 for information about the hackers, removed sites with databases, changed the brand, renamed Ashley Madison, and completely changed the management.
But the reputation was burned to the ground. Immediately after the hack, the FBI and Canadian police began an investigation. They brought in cybersecurity experts, cryptoanalysts, and even profiling experts. The result? Not a single arrest, not a single public version with evidence, not a single hacker who would come out of the shadows. The main versions were as follows. An insider from the company.
This is the most popular theory among cyber experts. And here are the arguments. The Impact Team knew the internal infrastructure. The attack was selective. As if they knew where everything was stored. The hackers spoke in a language similar to a disgruntled employee. You are scammers. You are deceiving your customers. You knew that full-service does not work, we knew it too. Some even point to a woman, a former employee of the company, allegedly fired shortly before the hack, but the name was never officially announced.
The FBI did not deny this theory, but did not confirm it either. Activists or moral radicals. Some analysts believe that an informal group of people close to conservative or religious circles was behind the attack. They could have seen Ashley Madison as a moral threat, a call to sin, and decided that if the state does not punish, we will. You destroy families, we will destroy you.
But there is a problem. No known radical group has claimed responsibility for the hack. Competitors are the most controversial theory. The hack could have been staged by competitors in the adult market. But there is zero evidence and it looks more like a movie script than reality. So why was no one arrested? The data went through Tor and encrypted channels. Publications on the Darknet left no trace. The hackers did not negotiate, they could not be caught.
They disappeared as quickly as they appeared. What happened to Ashley Madison? The site survived the hack, but was completely rebranded. Ewait Life Media became Rubicor, the old management left, a new CEO appeared, who officially apologized and called the leak the darkest day in the history of the online dating industry. Today, the site still exists, but it is a shadow of its former self. Without the former popularity, without trust. The database is still online, it lives its own life.
There are dozens of copies on forums, on the Darknet, even on the open Internet. For many, this is a death sentence forever. It is difficult to explain to your wife that you just looked, if your name is in the leaked archive.
