About a moth ago the "married" dating website Ashley Madison was hacked. The site claimed that 37 million members data was breached and the hackers demanded that the site be taken down. The hackers, know as The Impact Team, required that the site be taken down, or the information would be made public. Now, 30 days later, the information has been leaked.
Avid Life Media, which is the company behind Ashley Madison provided members with an opportunity to delete their accounts for a $19 fee directly following the breach. But guess what, The Impact Team has that information as well.
Security blogger Brian Kerbs stated that "I've now spoken with three vouched sources who all have reported finding their information and last four digits of their credit card numbers in the leaked database,"
So where is the database? It was apparently leaked on the dark web. What the hell is that you ask? It means, that it is only accessible via an encrypted browser. Most of us do not have the ability to view the data right now, but my guess it will be available shortly.
15,000 of the profiles had .mil and .gov email addresses. Is anyone surprised by that? With so much "married" dating going on it amazing government offices aren't closed more often.
So with the anticipation of the leak, here are a few defenses that the prospective members may be crafting for the big reveal.
1: I thought I was signing up for a coupon website.
2: My brother/sister signed me up as a joke. Funny, right?
3: My credit card was stolen, did I forget to tell you that?
4: It wasn't me.
5: Why are you looking at the data? Don't you trust me?
6: It said life is short, what was I supposed to do?
7: I know that's my picture in the profile, but people steal stuff online all the time, duh!
8: I paid that damn deletion fee; this site lied to me!
9: I only created the account to see if you had an account. I would never cheat on you!
10: It's technically not cheating, because she lived in a different zip code.
Life may be a bit shorter for these members, at least married life as they know it. Perhaps if they had kept it in their pants, or had only shared it with their spouse, they wouldn't be in this mess. I wonder if this hack will have as much entertaining information as Heidi Fleiss' receipt ledger.
Meredith is a work-from-home mother of three who writes about the inappropriate side of marriage and motherhood on her blog at That's Inappropriate Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.