Ashley Madison hack resulted in the data from its millions of users being published online. The situation is a total mess, especially for a website that holds intimate details about its users. And now, police officers pointed out that the adult dating site's hack may be linked to hate crimes, extortion, and suicide.
An attack was reported on Ashley Madison. The adult dating site meant for facilitating discreet extramarital affairs, but when the website was hacked, it resulted in the data from its millions of users being published online. As reported by The Verge, the hack was first disclosed in July 2015 and in the middle of August. The data from millions of users began to appear online.
And now, in a recent report by BBC, a police in Canada suggested that two individuals' suicide was associated with the leak of Ashley Madison customer details. Pointing out on The Impact Team, the acting staff superintendent Bryce Evans of the Toronto police stressed out, "I want to make it very clear to you your actions are illegal and we will not be tolerating them. This is your wake-up call." He also added that Ashley Madison's Canadian parent company Avid Life Media is offering a C$500,000 or £240,000 reward for information on the hackers.
According to The Star, the dreadful cost to the victims of the cyber attack on Toronto-based infidelity website includes hate crimes, extortion attempts and suicide. "This is not fun and games," Evans also added. Furthermore, the acting staff superintendent stated facts on Monday at a news conference about last week's data dump by the hacker group calling itself the Impact Team.
The hack has sparked online hate crimes, online scams and may be related to two unconfirmed reports of suicide, Evans emphasized at the conference. Police would not elaborate on more details of the hate crimes and suicides. The Toronto Police said they could not confirm published reports in U.S. media about the suicides. But then, a police captain in San Antonio, Texas reportedly killed himself after a leak on his Ashley Madison account, but it was not yet confirmed.
The police officers now labelled the hack as one of the largest data breaches in the world and it exposed tens of millions of people's personal information. Meanwhile, Police have set up a Twitter account, @AMCaseTPS, and hashtag, #AMCaseTPS, in a promise to gather more facts about the hack from members of the public.
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