Hackers are now taking advantage of the people affected by the recent Ashley Madison attack, security companies say.
An email provider blocked a suspicious email while they are developing a spam filter that could potentially stop sending extortion mails after the recent Ashley Madison attack and showed it to Brian Krebs, a security journalist. As recalled, there were more than 30 million profiles that were included in the data dump of the so-called cheating website.
Part of the email essentially asked Mac (the recipient of the e-mail) to send exactly 1.0000001 Bitcoins to a given address if the recipient does not wish the extortionist to share the information to his wife. The extortionist gave Mac 7 days to send the bitcoin. The email added that sending a wrong amount will not let him know that it was Mac who paid. Mac said that if he did receive the email, he simply would not respond.
Mac tried his best to conceal his identity, just what most users on the website most likely have done. When paying for his membership, he used a prepaid card but the billing address is also his permanent address.
Other users used fake email accounts to cover their identities. Still, when paying for their subscriptions, the users are still connected to their specific computer networks such as those of government employees who were tracked down because when they made payments, they were linked to government internet connections.
This type of blackmail has been predicted by security professionals to follow after the data leak of Ashley Madison
Others are concerned about the extortion effects on government officials. The hackers are most likely thinking about ways how they can make profits for the data. The victims' details may also be used by identity thieves since a lot of their personal details have been accessed by the recent attack.
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