Ashley Madison Victims Receive Extortion Threats
The nightmare is not done yet for the victims of the Ashley Madison breach. According to a report by the New York Post, users whose names were revealed to be part of the married dating service are receiving extortion threats via email.
One particular user named John R. availed the services of New York-based reputation-management firm Status Labs for help regarding the email that he received back in September. The email, according to him, came with a subject line that said, "You got busted."
Immediately, John, a 35-year old professional in the science field, clicked open the message that contained the extortion message. It said that John's data was one of the many pieces of information leaked in the recent hacking of Ashley Madison and that his information was in the sender's hands already, ready to be used when needed.
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It went on to say, "I have also used your user profile to find your Facebook page, using this I can now message all of your friends and family members."
The extortion letter, which was poorly spelled according to the source, also said that John will need to pay around $500. Failure to do so in three days would lead to what John feared the most—his wife finding out. The email sender threatened to inform John's family and friends about the Ashley Madison membership if he doesn't pay up.
Unfortunately, John isn't the only one who received the email as such message is said to have appeared in the inboxes of the estimated 37 million Ashley Madison users whose data was exposed. Johannes Ullrich, a software-security expert and dean of research for SANS Technology Institute in Jacksonville, believes that the extortionists were not part of the hack team that crashed the website.
Ullrich said that the extortionists used methods typically used by Russian mob and Nigerian scammers which are spambot techniques. He then said that the chances the extortionists would actually follow through with their threats are small since it would be too risky. If they are traced, they will be facing serious charges.
A few months ago, the controversial website Ashley Madison came crashing down when a group of hackers gained access to its database, exposing each and every user who signed up to have an extramarital affair.
