A large exposed list. Here’s what we know about who hacked Ashley Madison nearly a decade after the data set was leaked.
The Ashley Madison Hack was one of the biggest hacks in history, making the private information of more than 37 million users available to the public. The Canadian dating site, designed for people seeking adulterous affairs, was the subject of a 2015 cybersecurity breach that ruined lives and marriages the world over.
Netflix’s three-episode series Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal examines the way of the rise of the site. “Rather than berating people who joined Ashley Madison we were much more interested in exploring why they were drawn to the site — what were they looking for? What was going on in their relationships? And crucially — what was their partner’s side of the story?” Toby Paton, the series director, wrote in a statement, per Variety.
Who Hacked Ashley Madison?
As of May 2024, no one knows who hacked Ashley Madison. The group that was behind the hack was named The Impact Group. Though, many people in the documentary have theorized that it might be one person.
“It’s a fascinating aspect of the whole story,” Paton said about the theory 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.
Why was Ashley Madison hacked?
The Impact Group threatened to leak information on Ashley Madison if their parent company Avid Life Media didn’t cease its operations. Ashley Madison did not comply and more than 37 million data files got leaked such as active users, deactivated users, nude photos, personal addresses, and credit card numbers.
“You promised secrecy but didn’t deliver,” the hackers stated, according to Business Insider. “We’ve got the complete set of profiles in our DB dumps, and we’ll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online … A significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people.”
Noel Biderman, the CEO of Ashley Madison also had his private and business emails exposed. Though he’d claim that he never cheated on his wife, his emails said different. “It was definitely a person here that was not an employee but certainly had touched our technical services,” he told security blogger Brian Krebs, external.
“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,” Avid Life Media said in a statement following the data release, per Wired. “It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities … We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.”
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandals is now streaming on Netflix.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
