CANADIAN POLICE SAY they have become aware of two unconfirmed cases of suicide connected to the hacking of the Ashley Madison affairs website.
Toronto Police’s Bryce Evans told a news conference about the deaths today but cautioned that it has yet to be confirmed that they are linked to the release of stolen data.
Evans said that anyone who’s being blackmailed as a result of the leak of personal information should contact authorities. The personal details of some 32 million people have been compromised following the hack.
Police shared a number of documents, including a copy of an email that shows the type of blackmail threat being sent to people whose data was released.
The threat claimed that the sender would contact a recipient’s friends and family, informing them of their presence on Ashley Madison, unless the recipient paid money into a Bitcoin account.
The letter told the recipient to, “consider how expensive a divorce lawyer is”.
Police also confirmed that the company behind the adultery website is offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a group that hacked the site.
Hackers last week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website, one month after a break-in at Ashley Madison’s parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc.
The hackers who took credit for the break-in have accused the website’s owners of deceit and incompetence and said the company refused to bow to their demands to close the site.
- With reporting by Associated Press and © – AFP 2015
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