What Is The Name Of The Dating Site That Was Hacked In August 2015?
Aug 18, 2015 05:55 PM. 'Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating,' the site asserts on its homepage. 'Have an Affair today on Ashley Madison. The data released. Why do websites get hacked? What to do if you blog is hacked or you are facing attacks? How can you prevent such attacks? Read on to find out. Carl Court/Getty Images. Hackers claim to have made good on their threat to release data they stole in a breach last month of the company behind Ashley Madison, the popular online dating website aimed at people hoping to cheat on their spouses. On Tuesday, the group of hackers who first claimed responsibility for the attack last month.
It appears legit. I asked my twitter followers for those who had created accounts. I have verified multiple users of the site, one of which was a throw-away account used only on the site. Assuming my followers aren't lying, this means the dump is confirmed. Update: one follower verified his last 4 digits of credit-card number and billing address was exposed.
It's over 36-million accounts. That's not quite what they claim, but it's pretty close. However, glancing through the data, it appears that a lot of the accounts are bogus, obviously made up things for people who just want to look at the site without creating a 'real' account.
It's heavily men. I count 28-million men to 5 million woman, according to the 'gender' field in the database (with 2-million undetermined). However, glancing through the credit-card transactions, I find only male names.
It's full account information. This includes full name, email, and password hash as you'd expect. It also includes dating information, like height, weight, and so forth. It appears to contain addresses, as well as GPS coordinates. I suspect that many people created fake accounts, but with an app that reported their real GPS coordinates.
Passwords hashed with bcrypt. Almost all the records appear to be protected with bcrypt. This is a refreshing change. Most of the time when we see big sites hacked, the passwords are protected either poorly (with MD5) or not at all (in 'clear text', so that they can be immediately used to hack people). Hackers will be able to 'crack' many of these passwords when users chose weak ones, but users who strong passwords are safe.
Maybe 250k deleted accounts. There are about 250k accounts that appear to have the password information removed. I don't know why, maybe it's accounts that have paid to be removed. Some are marked explicitly as such, others imply that.
Partial credit card data. It appears to have credit card transaction data -- but not the full credit card number. It does have full name and addresses, though. This is data that can 'out' serious users of the site.
You can download everything via BitTorrent. The magnet number is
40ae8a90de40ca3afa763c8edb43fc1fc47d75f1. If you've got BitTorrent installed, you can use this to download the data. It's 9.7 gigabytes compressed, so you'll need a good Internet connection.
The hackers call themselves the 'Impact Team'. Their manifesto is here. They appear to be motivated by the immorality of adultery, but in all probability, their motivation is that #1 it's fun and #2 because they can. They probably used phishing, SQL injection, or re-used account credentials in order to break in.
What Is The Name Of The Dating Site That Was Hacked In August 2015? Images
They deserve some praise. Compared to other large breaches, it appears Ashley-Madison did a better job at cybersecurity. They tokenized credit card transactions and didn't store full credit card numbers. They hashed passwords correctly with bcrypt. They stored email addresses and passwords in separate tables, to make grabbing them (slightly) harder. Thus, this hasn't become a massive breach of passwords and credit-card numbers that other large breaches have lead to. They deserve praise for this.Josh Duggar. This Gawker article appears correct from my reading of the data.
Some stories in the press:
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/happened-hackers-posted-stolen-ashley-madison-data/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/data-from-hack-of-ashley-madison-cheater-site-purportedly-dumped-online/http://fusion.net/story/184982/heres-what-we-know-about-the-ashley-madison-hack/
By Robin LaMonte
Having your online accounts hacked by cyber thieves or phone calls pretending to be a credit card company or the social security office just to get money or personal information from you is the dark side of the internet where I just came from. As the editor-in-chief of this magazine and platform, I have been consumed with the recent hacking of my Instagram account and subsequently my PayPal account. I think it’s important to share this post that first appeared on my Hello I’m 50ish blog.
How My Instagram(think) got Hacked
On Saturday afternoon I received a private DM (direct message) from someone pretending to be from Instagram telling me that I have violated copyright and community guidelines. After checking this fake Instagram profile I immediately blocked and reported the fake account. Always be leery of private accounts on Instagram! This was only the beginning of my Instagram nightmare.
This account is fake and was using someone else’s followers and following, probably a hacked Instagram account. (You will see how my account changed later)
I think the next two things caused my account to be hacked.
1. I accidentally clicked on a phishing link that was embedded in the text of an email.
After I reported the fake account to Instagram I received an email from what I thought was Instagram but it was a phishing emailfrom the hackers asking me to change my password on Instagram. The email said that they noticed suspicious activity on my account and that I should change my password. I clicked the link, changed my password, and the hacker got into my account!!
Beware of suspicious emails and the links they include!
Phishing is a scam technique that uses fake messages, websites, and social engineering to lure information or money out of people and businesses. It mostly depends on peoples’ habits and emotions to cloud their judgment. Phishing has been around since the early days of the internet, but it’s still one of the most widespread forms of cyber attack: 32% of all data breaches last year involved phishing.
2. I didn’t have Two-Factor Authentication enabled on my IG Account.
Even though I know many influencers have been hacked even having the two-factor verification makes it harder for hackers to log in to your accounts if they do get your username and password.
The hacker immediately changed my name, password, email address, and phone number on my Instagram account.
How I got My Instagram Account back
On Sunday morning I woke up to a message on the What’s App (another app owned by Facebook)telling me that my Instagram was hacked. It also exposed the hacker’s phone number to me so I blocked and reported it. I wrote down the phone number and learned it was from Turkey. Notice at the bottom Instagram posted a message to my hacker that his buddy was also on Instagram?
Write to Facebook and Instagram and Report It
After googling every article and blog post about hacked accounts I began writing to Instagram and Facebook with every screenshot and information I had about my hacked account. I included the old Instagram name, the new name, and the hacker’s email and phone number. This would be my daily routine even though I NEVER HEARD BACK from Instagram or Facebook.
Create a Backup Account
Worst case scenario is the possibility that you may not recover your Instagram account. I happened to takeover my interior design Instagram account that only had 1739 followers. This was probably very confusing to my interior design community who follow me on Instagram when I had to explain my main account was hacked. However, so many wonderful women who followed me on Instagram mentioned me in their IG stories which created a larger SOS call to action. By creating awareness that my account was stolen also created a larger network of women who wanted to help me.
Stall the Hacker with Kindness and Avoid Paying the Good Hackers (If You Can) while waiting to recover your Instagram account
Did you know there are good hackers who will actually help you get your account back? This was so eye-opening for me but everyone has a gig. I had many “so-called” good hackers DM me to get my account back. Their accounts were private and were foreigners which gave them red flags! Yes, if this had gone beyond a week I was seriously considering paying someone to get back my account. There was a person who wanted $1500.00 to use their contacts at Instagram but said it would take two weeks. I don’t have two weeks and I’m not paying someone because they KNOW SOMEONE AT INSTAGRAM!
I had days when I ignored the hacker but he was always trying to get me to pay him $250.00 in bitcoin. Every day he would pop on and ask me to pay him. The ransom was not the problem, I actually thought it was pretty cheap, but I was hoping for a better solution. I knew he was getting desperate and needed money. So instead of paying him, I stalled him with kindness…
I made sure I was in charge of the situation and not give him the upper hand. Every day I had him prove that he would be honorable. He had taken down 128 photos and I made him put them back up.
Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Works for Facebook or Instagram. (But don’t pay for the privilege)
It became apparent that I would never hear from Instagram because they don’t have a place to report being hacked that I had to ask people to help me. You really do need to contact someone who works at Facebook or Instagram to get your account back. My son has a friend who works at Facebook and that is how I got my account back. Instagram and Facebook are the only ones who can send you an email to change your password. Do it quickly because the hackers still have your account!
What to Do to Prevent This Happening to You
Our online accounts might be hacked many times but we can at least try to prevent this from happening in the future.
1. Use a Strong Password on Your Accounts
Always use a strong password that includes letters, numbers, and special characters. For maximum Instagram security, I use Google’s password manager: it generates strong passwords for you and keeps them secure. And don’t forget to change your passwords every 30 days. I changed 319 passwords last week because I was hacked.
2. Don’t Use the Same Password for Everything.
Don’t use the same password everywhere. I know it’s hard, but using the same password everywhere is one of probably the easiest ways that hackers can break-in. So if you have the same Instagram password as your same banking information, those are things that can get you in some serious trouble.
3. Use a Different Email for Your Online Banking. Period.
I created an email and password just for my bank because my PayPal account was also hacked shortly after my Instagram account. I notified by 18 emails from PayPal that I was sending $17,000.00 to one woman with 18 different transactions. I immediately called PayPal to dispute the transactions. Someone had created a new primary phone number and email on my account overnight. Because PayPal is linked to my bank account for business purposes I had to call my bank to refuse any PayPal transactions. The hacker had duplicated my IP address so it looked like it was me! It took me a week to straighten this out with PayPal. The hackers had my email account and saw where it was linked to. They can duplicate phone numbers and even your own online presence to fool banks.
4. Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication is an additional step in the login process. I use Google Authenticator, so Instagram kicked me over to that app, where I copied a confirmation code that I then pasted in Instagram to complete the setup. Every time you want to access your account, you must type a code you received via SMS or an authentication app. While this might seem like drudgery and may take more time to log in, it’s worth enabling, as it adds an extra layer of security.
5. Don’t Give out Information to Strangers.
It’s easy to fall for a phishing scam on Instagram, so never click on any links received from strangers. If you see that a suspicious account has followed you, block it.
Also never give out personal information on the phone or in an email.
That’s one of the biggest things that attackers can leverage to get access to your data. Things like social security numbers, your credit card numbers. A person is not going to call you on the phone from a banking service and ask you for that type of information. So whenever you get a call, that’s too good to be true, or a call that is a fraud services line, call them back. Look at the number on the website themselves and call it back cause a lot of times attackers will impersonate financial services. They’ll impersonate different organizations to try to get your personal information and use that to be able to make fraudulent charges. So when it comes to that, your phone, verify first. Go to their site, call the site itself, off from there, and then call to an actual person that’s actually at that institute itself.
For those of you who get countless emails for collaborations, and rush through emails, slow down before you click the link!!
What Is The Name Of The Dating Site That Was Hacked In August 2015? In The United States
6. Keep your Computer and Apps up to date!
Please make sure that you stay up to date on your computer, phone, and iPads. Every time you have a Windows update that says hey I need to update your computer, it’s usually to fix a known attack that hackers have figured out to get access to your computer. So keep up to date whether you’re using a Mac, (they aren’t impervious to attack), or you’re using Windows, the same thing, update your systems. That’s the most important thing, always keep up to date with what you’re having out there. Same thing for third-party applications. You want to keep up to date and that makes it much harder for hackers to break into your system.
What Is The Name Of The Dating Site That Was Hacked In August 2015? In Nigeria
In Conclusion
This was an eyeopener for me because I knew that young women were having their Instagram accounts hacked but never thought the hackers would go after a woman over 60. They did. I learned a lot about how to protect myself and my personal information while being on the internet. I hope you learned a little bit more on how to protect yourself too.