What was once a site that guaranteed anonymity for those looking to cheat on their spouses has now become a public list exposing infidelity to the world.
AshleyMadison.com has become a household name overnight, largely thanks to Josh Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame being linked to an account. Duggar was just the tip of the iceberg, as politicians and other public figures have been listed as members of the adults-only website that says it will connect married people looking to have affairs with willing partners.
As media outlets comb through the data, more and more names are coming to light. The breach has exposed profile information, email addresses and credit card transaction information.
According to The Guardian, the profile information includes a user’s name, street address and birth date. It also stores personal information on “turn-ons,” what a person is looking for in another individual, acts they’re hoping will be performed, and if they smoke or drink. The email database includes information about what mailing lists users opted.
The credit card transaction information isn’t enough to steal users’ cash, The Guardian says. Avid Life Media, owner of Ashley Madison, says it has never stored members’ full credit card numbers.
According to a poll put together by Reddit user jpopham91, the most unfaithful state is Alabama. But E! Online suggests there is a skew toward Alabama because it is the default and first state in the drop-down box when making a profile.
It looks like updates relating to the Ashley Madison hack will continue to grow for some time. Here’s a look at what we know so far.
2001
Ashley Madison is founded by Canadian Noel Biderman, a former attorney. He describes himself as a happily married father.
2012
Doriana Silva, a former Ashley Madison employee, files a suit claiming she damaged her wrists while typing hundreds of fake profiles for the company’s Portuguese-language site. Silva says she was promised a salary of $34,000 to create 1,000 fake female profiles to lure men to Ashley Madison’s Brazilian site.
May 22, 2015
AdultFriendFinder.com, a site claiming to have helped “millions of people find traditional partners, swinger groups, threesomes and a variety of other alternative partners” is hacked. The information that is exposed includes customers’ email addresses, usernames, passwords, birthdays and zip codes, as well as sexual preferences, according to CNN. The site has 64 million members.
July 20, 2015
Avid Life Media announces that it has been made aware of an unauthorized party gaining access to its system. Avid Life Media calls the breach an act of cyberterrorism. It claims the “paid-delete” option offered by AshleyMadison.com removes all information related to a member’s profile.
July 15, 2015
The Impact Team, an individual hacker or group of hackers, posts caches of data stolen from AshleyMadison.com.
Aug. 18, 2015
Avid Life Media announces that the individual or individuals responsible for the attack have claimed to release more data. The company says its investigation is ongoing and that it is cooperating with law enforcement, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Police Service and the U.S. FBI.
Aug. 20, 2015
Josh Duggar releases a statement in which he admits to viewing pornography and being unfaithful to his wife, Anna. He claims pornography had become a secret addiction and that he had been living a double life. He also says he had re-broken the trust of his family.
France24.com reports that 1,200 email addresses have the suffix .sa. The .sa suffix is used in Saudi Arabia, where adultery is punishable by death.
Aug. 22, 2015
Two Arkansas lawmakers and a retired Arkansas Supreme Court justice are among the names yielded by the breach, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The lawmakers are Reps. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, and John Baine, D-El Dorado. The former justice is Donald L. Corbin.
The Democrat-Gazette reports that Lowery says he believed the site was only a dating website at the time and didn’t know it was for cheating spouses. Lowery says he had joined the site in November 2011 after a long separation from his former wife and when divorce had seemed imminent. He says he never met anyone from the website.
Baine, an accountant for Murphy USA Inc. and former member of the Union County Quorum Court, says he would not seek re-election, “citing growing responsibilities with his job and family,” the Democrat-Gazette reports. He has not commented on the alleged Ashley Madison account in his name.
Corbin has not commented publicly.
Aug. 23, 2015
BBC reports that two Canadian firms — Charney Lawyers and Sutts, and Strosberg LLP — are bringing a class action suit against Avid Dating Life and Avid Media on behalf of “all Canadians” affected by the breach.
Aug. 24, 2015
Canadian police say the Ashley Madison hack may be related to two suicides.
Ashley Madison
Not a real person, Biderman told the Los Angles Times in 2009. He says it is a combination of what were, at the time, two of the most popular names for baby girls.
6th
Arkansas’ rank among the most unfaithful states, according to an analysis using Ashley Madison data
$3.50
Approximate dollar amount spent per capita on Ashley Madison in Arkansas, according to an analysis using Ashley Madison data
30th
Ashley Madison’s ranking among visitors to adult sites on Aug. 25, according to SimilarWeb.com
74.9M
Desktop visitors to Ashley Madison in July, according to SimilarWeb.com
28.68%
Total percentage of Ashley Madison traffic coming from the U.S., according to SimilarWeb.com
$378K
The reward offered by Ashley Madison for information leading to the arrest of the hacker or hackers