Ashley Maddison 'infidelity site' Spanish members report blackmail by hackers
Wednesday, October 21, 2015 @ 1:50 PM
SPANISH users of the extra-marital dating site Ashley Madison have reported being blackmailed by hackers who exposed their and 37 million other members' data.
Guardia Civil officers have launched a probe after hearing that the cyber-infiltrators, who go by the name of The Impact Team but have not been traced, had demanded money from potentially unfaithful husbands and wives in exchange for not telling their partners, family, friends and work connections.
Back in July, hackers left the full names, email addresses and bank account details of millions of people signed up to the 'cheating' date site, based in the USA but with a presence in 26 countries, on view for all.
Now, what is believed to be a second group of cyber-spies has begun to capitalise by sending emails asking for between €500 and €2,000.
To prove they were not a phishing attempt, the sender would refer to specific bank transactions made by the user in the past few months.
And they made it clear they knew who the people they intended to tell were by using the exposed data to access users' Facebook sites to find the most likely contacts they could cause havoc with by sending proof they had signed up to the contact advert service.
It is thought at least a handful of members are in almost every town in Spain and that at least eight or nine in 10 are male, according to an exposé by a local Spanish newspaper site earlier this year.
But the article recalled that just because a person had signed up did not mean they had every used – or even intended to use – Ashley Maddison's services.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com