AN ONLINE SECURITY expert has written a blog about the correspondence he’s received from those affected by the Ashley Madison website hack.
Troy Hunt partly runs the Have I been pwned? (HIBP) website which allows people check if their data has been compromised by an online hack.
Subscribers to the site can use it to check if an email is part of the Ashley Madison leak.
It’s mainly because of this that he’s been contacted by both worried users of Ashley Madison and women who are worried that their husbands have been on the site. (Hunt notes that close to 100% of the emails he received were about men on the site.)
In a blog post published yesterday, the HIBP blogger anonymously published some of the type of questions he’s been receiving since the Ashley Madison hack became global news.
It includes requests to be removed from the listing:
I wonder if you could offer advice for trying to hide it again, take it off, remove it etc. or can this even be done?
People who just wanted the whole list:
Hi, can I get the bulk data dump for Ashley Madison
Others were just terrified and sorry:
I love her very much and don’t want to lose her, I am deeply worried that she will leave and greatly impact my life.I literally cannot sleep and never met anyone but am terrified as what might happen.
My last resort is asking you if you could PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me out and let me know what you have on me.
I have couple of 3 year old kids. I can tell you my amount of activity on these site was basically limited to one or two session logins and more of just curiosity on what’s there…..And in this case, looks like curiosity could kill the cat.
Some people used non-traceable email addresses but used a credit card as payment and are now worried:
I used a burner email address but paid once for a full membership. Now it seems my name and address are affiliated with the breach.
Because anyone can enter anyone’s email in the site, some people have been implicated even though they’ve never heard of the site:
People like me are on the list despite NOT signing up on the website, because the website did NOT verify email addresses and someone gave mine as a supposedly fake address.
Wives who’ve been getting suspicious about their husbands:
I wanted to know if you can search my husband’s name/info for the Ashley Madison hack. I have found the AM site shown 2 times on his IPad history & a MILF hook up site when I looked at the history. He claims they were “pop-ups” from porn sites.
Some people who said they joined up for innocent reason:
I don’t recall ever even visiting the site, but it’s possible in some moment of general curiosity to see if people actually did that sort of thing.I joined Ashley Madison one night bored, honestly. Used my real email , but fake info from there on and never used a CC or got a real membership. Spent 15 mins and have never been back
One woman even says her local church contacted her to say her husband was on the site:
So got a call, from our church leaders yesterday, saying my husband’s work email was on [redacted], oh my!
Some people have been contacting Hunt basically saying that they’ve no sympathy for those who’ve been caught:
JUSTICE for all the good people getting cheating on. Im glad the list has been exposed.. I don’t care if other innocent people that weren’t cheating were exposed that’s the risks you get when signing up for this crap online TOO BAD.
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