Ashley Madison user base still growing after data hack, says owner
Cheating website Ashley Madison's user base is still expanding even after a data hack that exposed the personal information of millions of its subscribers, the site's owner said.
On Monday, parent firm Avid Life Media said hundreds of thousands of new users subscribed to cheating website Ashley Madison last week. The company also addressed "date bait" issues thrown against it and said the site had real female users, according to Reuters.
"Last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform," Reuters quotes Avid Life's statement. "The company continues its day-to-day operations even as it deals with the theft of its private data by criminal hackers. Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing."
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The firm added that 87,596 women signed up for Ashley Madison in the past week.
Avid Life Media said the data released by the hackers have been interpreted erroneously. The firm called the reports predicting the eventual shutdown of Ashley Madison as "exaggerated" because the site is still growing despite the attack, the report adds.
The files released by the hackers state that Avid Life had been having difficulties raising funds and selling its services for at least three years. But on Monday, Gizmodo published a report saying its previous estimate of the active female users of Ashley Madison was the result of a "misunderstanding of the evidence," ABC News reports.
On August 18, hackers exposed the identities of Ashley Madison customers because they did not like the business practices of the parent website. Another data dump exposed customer emails and company files, but the authenticity of the documents has not yet been confirmed.
Meanwhile, a reward amounting to around $376,000 has been offered in exchange for information that might help identify, arrest, and punish the individuals responsible for the Ashley Madison hack.
On Friday, the company announced that its chief executive officer Noel Biderman had stepped down from his position. The firm's senior management team will be taking over until they are able to choose a new chief executive.
