One way data was kept “safe” was by not using money but instead a credit system that is used to pay for almost everything within the app, which includes sending messages, follow up messages and real time chatting.
However, for messages men have to pay eight credits. They do not sell single credits, it is sold in sets of 100 for $59 or 1000 which costs $289. Another way that Avid Life Media supposedly kept data safe was by full account deletion, which was the one thing that credits were not used for.
They stated when your account was deleted, all your information was wiped from their system. This was not at all true. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that for up to 12 months they kept the data. Which all leads up to 2015 when Ashley Madison got hacked by The Impact Team. The impact team was a hacker group who wanted to expose Ashley Madison and the people that use it.
The hacked data they saw to protect went onto the dark web over the course of around a month from July 18th the August 21st. The amount of data leaked was 60 gigabytes, within that data was the personal information of many users including ones who paid to have their accounts deleted. The data exposed included, emails names, phone numbers and addresses. The list was put out on the internet using BitTorrent, which is a file sharing protocol. After the hack occurred FTC found that Avid Life Media was using data from already existing users who were not active to make fake accounts. In addition they also found that Ashley Madison may have also partaken in practices that went against FTC regulations. These practices include Lack of a documented information security policy Insufficient implementation of effective access controls Inadequate training for personnel on data security practices Failure to oversee third-party service providers properly. The FTC was not alone in its endeavors of an investigation: the office of the privacy commissioner of Canada (opc) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner worked with them All three parties wanted to make sure that Ashley Madison kept its data safe. The investigation from all three parties led to Ashley Madison promising to keep the data of its users more secure.
With all that in mind, the people who wanted an affair without their partner knowing had love and lost it. There is even now a Netflix documentary that goes into more detail about the entire hack and the aftermath. In the end Ashley Madison had its data and in a way lost it to the dark web.
In 2002 the company avid life media now known as Ruby Corp made an app called Ashley Madison, a dating app for married people or those already in a relationship. This app is still running today and is still extremely popular with over 60 million users worldwide to date. With their tagline being: “life is short, have an affair” they have to pride themselves on discrete affairs and keeping user data safe.
One way data was kept “safe” was by not using money but instead a credit system that is used to pay for almost everything within the app, which includes sending messages, follow up messages and real time chatting.
However, for messages men have to pay eight credits. They do not sell single credits, it is sold in sets of 100 for $59 or 1000 which costs $289. Another way that Avid Life Media supposedly kept data safe was by full account deletion, which was the one thing that credits were not used for.
They stated when your account was deleted, all your information was wiped from their system. This was not at all true. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that for up to 12 months they kept the data. Which all leads up to 2015 when Ashley Madison got hacked by The Impact Team. The impact team was a hacker group who wanted to expose Ashley Madison and the people that use it.
The hacked data they saw to protect went onto the dark web over the course of around a month from July 18th the August 21st. The amount of data leaked was 60 gigabytes, within that data was the personal information of many users including ones who paid to have their accounts deleted. The data exposed included, emails names, phone numbers and addresses. The list was put out on the internet using bittorrent, which is a file sharing protocol. After the hack occurred FTC found that Avid Life Media was using data from already existing users who were not active to make fake accounts. In addition they also found that Ashley Madison may have also partaken in practices that went against FTC regulations. These practices include Lack of a documented information security policy Insufficient implementation of effective access controls Inadequate training for personnel on data security practices Failure to oversee third-party service providers properly. The FTC was not alone in its endeavors of an investigation: the office of the privacy commissioner of Canada (opc) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner worked with them All three parties wanted to make sure that Ashley Madison kept its data safe. The investigation from all three parties led to Ashley Madison promising to keep the data of its users more secure.
With all that in mind, the people who wanted an affair without their partner knowing had love and lost it. There is even now a Netflix documentary that goes into more detail about the entire hack and the aftermath. In the end Ashley Madison had its data and in a way lost it to the dark web.
Image by David Hoefler
