(Bloomberg) — Hackers claiming to have stolen data from AshleyMadison.com, a website that facilitates hook-ups between would-be adulterers, have released information they say includes details of more than 36 million user accounts.
The data dump appears to be "legit" and includes full names, e-mail addresses, partial credit card data and dating preferences, according to Robert Graham, chief executive officer of Errata Security, a researcher in Atlanta.
"This is data that can 'out' serious users," Graham said in a blog post. "I have verified multiple users of the site."
The hackers, calling themselves the "Impact Team," released a "read-me" file with the data that said they posted the information because AshleyMadison hadn't been taken down, as they demanded when they said they had obtained the data last month.
"Find someone you know in here? Keep in mind the site is a scam with thousands of fake female profiles," the read-me note said. "Chances are your man signed up on the world's biggest affair site, but never had one. He just tried to. If that distinction matters."
Avid Life Media Inc., the Toronto company that operates the site, said in a statement that it is "monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity" of the information and pledged to do what it can to scrub the data from the Internet.
That may be difficult as download links have proliferated across the Web. The information is now available via the BitTorrent file-sharing technology, which means "it's easily accessible and won't disappear," said Wulf Bolte, chief technology officer at German mobile security company mediaTest digital.
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