Ashley Madison hack: 2 unconfirmed suicides linked to breach

[Deleted]

Ashley Madison hack: 2 unconfirmed suicides linked to breach, Toronto police say

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ashley-madison-hack-2-unconfirmed-suicides-linked-to-breach-toronto-police-say-1.3201432

Actions 'won't be tolerated,' police say of 30 million email addresses released from infidelity site

CBC News Posted: Aug 24, 2015 8:05 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 24, 2015 11:12 AM ET

Toronto police Staff Supt. Bryce Evans said there have been two unconfirmed reports of suicide linked to the Ashley Madison hack.

Toronto police warned hackers of the Ashley Madison infidelity website that their actions "won't be tolerated," and said there are two unconfirmed suicides linked to the breach.

"This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world," said Staff Supt. Bryce Evans at a Monday morning news conference.

Ashley Madison data dump: What's at risk and for whom

Canada-wide class action lawsuit filed against Ashley Madison parent company

More than 30 million email addresses and some credit card data were released as a result of the hack last month.

"Your actions are illegal and won't be tolerated," said Evans about a case also now being investigated by Canada's privacy commissioner.

Ashley Madison website

The Ashley Madison website was hacked in July, but the data was only dumped online last week. (Eric Foss/CBC)

He didn't give any further details where the unconfirmed suicide cases may have occurred. Evans also said there have been reports of hate crimes connected to the hack.

Avid Life Media, which runs the infidelity website, has offered $500,000 to anyone who contributes information that leads to an arrest in the case.

Police at the news conference also warned people whose data may have been compromised about a number of scams targeting them in the wake of the breach.

Data dumped online last week

Evans said a number of sites are extorting Ashley Madison clients, and offering to erase their names for a fee, something he says cannot be done.

"Nobody is going to be able to erase that information," Evans said, adding clicking on many of those links exposes your computer to malware and viruses.

Police also asked the tech community, as well as "white hat hackers" who don't engage in crime, to come forward if they have any information about the Impact Team or suggestion of avenues to investigate.

The website, which claims to have over 39 million users, is for people looking to arrange extramarital affairs, and run by Avid Life Media.

Some of that data was dumped online last week

A group calling itself Impact Team has claimed responsibility for the hack. Several sources have confirmed that the data is authentic.

The RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in investigating the breach, according to Avid Life Media.

The Toronto-based company has not revealed how much data was stolen by hackers.

Privacy watchdog investigates

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is investigating the breach.

"Given that the company is based in Canada, and considering the global scope of the incident, our office will be investigating jointly with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, and in co-operation with other international counterparts," spokeswoman Valerie Lawton said in an email.

Lawton could say little about the investigation, but confirmed the privacy commissioner has been in touch with Avid Life Media.

[pinkeggs]

I was worried that type of thing was going to happen. That's awful.

[heyjude]

I knew this was going to happen.

Bravo hackers.

[NewOrleans]

I fully admit to being gleeful about it all at first but the article the other day plus seeing someone's life get overturned on ML gave me a more mature and sober perspective about the hacking and data dump. I cannot believe what a shitty company AM is in terms of the security and the paid-delete-lie thing. Is this "inescapability" common?

Josh Duggar, however, is still a different matter.

[debatethis]

Aug 24, 2015 10:58:54 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I fully admit to being gleeful about it all at first but the article the other day plus seeing someone's life get overturned on ML gave me a more mature and sober perspective about the hacking and data dump. I cannot believe what a shitty company AM is in terms of the security and the paid-delete-lie thing. Is this "inescapability" common?

Josh Duggar, however, is still a different matter.

Ditto this. I thought it was karma and hilarious until it was pointed out that cheating is grounds for a firing squad in several countries where members live. That makes me ill and so does this.

[NewOrleans]

Aug 24, 2015 11:01:04 GMT -5 debatethis said:

Aug 24, 2015 10:58:54 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I fully admit to being gleeful about it all at first but the article the other day plus seeing someone's life get overturned on ML gave me a more mature and sober perspective about the hacking and data dump. I cannot believe what a shitty company AM is in terms of the security and the paid-delete-lie thing. Is this "inescapability" common?

Josh Duggar, however, is still a different matter.

Ditto this. I thought it was karma and hilarious until it was pointed out that cheating is grounds for a firing squad in several countries where members live. That makes me ill and so does this.

Yes, that article! I had an embarrassingly narrow view of this last week.

[heyjude]

It's very complicated. On the one hand cheaters suck. On the other hand, the family's that this will impact negatively do not. On the third hand even if cheaters suck they do not deserve death, humiliation, and job loss because they made a terrible mistake. It's sad all around.

[itsme]

Word went out that an employee where I work died over the weekend. People that worked with him mentioned that it is believed to have been a suicide and he did it at his gf's house. The guy was married. I wonder if this hack had something to do with it like he met his mistress on the site or something. I didn't know the guy and probably won't ever know what happened but it made me wonder. It is sad.

[ESF]

Another thing I have not seen mentioned. 36 million names were released all at once. How many millions of those people and their partners will need counseling and mental health services right at this moment? Or their children? How many don't have insurance or other resources to afford that counseling? How many are in geographic areas where there is a counseling shortage, either just because it's an underserved region, or because of an exceptionally high number of people were impacted by the release of this information, all at once, all at a very popular time for people such as doctors to be taking their summer vacations?

This is only going to get worse.

[rugbywife]

I am sure this is flammable in some way, but cheaters are going to cheat...AM is just a 21st century way of making money off of a problem/reality that has existed for as long as marriage has. I think the public outings are horrible...it's bad enough to find out your spouse has cheated, but to know that your friends and family could know by searching for it all? That just compounds the issue. So I take more issue with the hackers than AM. I think AM is gross, but they didn't invent cheating, they just brought it to the internet in a convenient package (until it wasn't).

[NewOrleans]

Aug 24, 2015 12:13:02 GMT -5 ESF said:

Another thing I have not seen mentioned. 36 million names were released all at once. How many millions of those people and their partners will need counseling and mental health services right at this moment? Or their children? How many don't have insurance or other resources to afford that counseling? How many are in geographic areas where there is a counseling shortage, either just because it's an underserved region, or because of an exceptionally high number of people were impacted by the release of this information, all at once, all at a very popular time for people such as doctors to be taking their summer vacations?

This is only going to get worse.