It was the target of one of the biggest cybersecurity hacks in history, so is Ashley Madison still around? The answer to that question surprised us too, given the impact of the leak was widespread, leading to scandals, lawsuits, and even incidents of blackmail.
The Canadian dating site, Ashley Madison was launched in 2002 and was marketed to people who are married (or people in relationships) who were looking for affairs. The website’s slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.” In July 2015, however, the site was hacked by a group known as The Impact Team, who claimed to have stolen personal information about the site’s user base and threatened to release names, home addresses, search histories, and credit card numbers if the site was not immediately shut down.
Related: The Ashley Madison Data Breach List Included A Real Housewives Husband & A President’s Son
After refusing to cooperate with the threats, the first leak of names was released in August; another followed a few weeks later. Netflix’s three-episode series Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal examines the meteoric rise of the website—which was truly a pioneer as far as online dating goes—and the hack that made it all come crashing down. After all that, here’s if Ashley Madison is still around.
Is Ashley Madison still around?
Yep, the site is still operating though there have been some changes to leadership and ahem, heightened security and encryption. In July 2016, Avid Life Media rebranded, changing its name to Ruby Corp, and appointed a new CEO, Rob Segal.
As of May 2024, the site claims to have 50 million users worldwide. Formerly owned by Avid Life Media Inc., along with other dating websites such as Cougar Life and Established Men, Ashley Madison’s parent company is now simply known as Ruby.
“We like that Ruby has a sensual, feminine quality, connotes value and fits with the fresh start our company is undergoing,” President James Millership told CBC at the time. “It’s a new day at Ruby and renaming … is an important step in our journey to completely rebuild the company as a relevant, digital dating innovator that truly cares for our customers,” Segal added.
As for the hackers, they’ve never been found. “It’s a fascinating aspect of the whole story,” Toby Paton, the Netflix series director said about the hacker’s identity to The New York Post. “The cyber expert that we speak to said it’s extremely unusual to have a sophisticated and high-profile [hack] and have the person who did it have never done anything before and never do anything since. It really seemed like it was a one-off.”
Paton thinks that it might have been an inside job, “I think there’s a high chance that whoever did it was in some sense connected … and had some kind of inside knowledge of how the company worked. But beyond that, I really don’t think anybody knows. Whoever did it has done an extraordinarily good job of keeping their head down.”
The top suspect behind the Ashley Madison hack actually died a year before the leak. Biderman sent a series of emails to an ex-Ashley Madison employee named William Brewster who led a hate campaign against the company after he was fired according to Distractify. Biderman and other executives at Ashley Madison thought Harrison was the head of the hack. However, Harrison died by suicide on March 5, 2014.
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal is available to stream on Netflix.
